This is a more accessible album than previous efforts. Where the open blue skies of the landscapes they chronicled before were tempered by the smoky dark blues of their jazz influences, "Garden Ruin" is musically brighter. Lyrically too, the album takes a left turn in which contemporary rather than mythical America is addressed. Put succinctly, "Garden Ruin" is where Calexico fill those dusty, empty landscapes they documented with a big, big sound.
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