Album Review: Calexico - The Thread That Keeps Us

Few bands, if any, evoke a sense of place like Calexico.

For most of their career they've surveyed the parched Arizona deserts and clattered through volatile Mexican border towns. Here, the territory they explore is sometimes underwhelmlingly familiar, with a few inadvisable diversions into the Caribbean and other exotic-but-dicey areas. Happily, a handful of standouts, such as the emotional gut-buster End Of The World With You and the expansive-yet-understated beauty of Music Box, save this expedition from becoming a lost one.