Calexico

Since 1996, Calexico frontman Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino have been pushing steadily out from the margins of the lo-fi art-rock world of Giant Sand and the Friends of Dean Martin (their former groups, and two that shaped their Southwestern tones and otherworldly eclecticism). The band's newest album, Garden Ruin, surges like a flash flood over the pair's mariachi and post-folk bridge-building. They haven't abandoned the desert; they've just made it bloom with new colors. With plentiful steel-string acoustics, straight back-beat drumming, recognizable rock structures, hints of political protest, an absence of instrumentals, the illustrations of comic artist James Jean, and an almost Love-ly orchestration of horns and strings, the band has reset its range and reconfigured its audience.