One of the best albums we've heard in simply ages.  Full text...

However, while “Garden Ruin” is a very good, sometimes excellent record, it’s also true that in terms of that indefinable and hot-blooded desert magic it’s a little dry, if not exactly threatened by a drought just yet.   Full text...

Across these 11 songs Calexico sounds fiercer and more creative than ever.  Full text...

Garden Ruin works for its diversity, but is the best Calexico has ever heard? Probably not, although Garden Ruin is certainly a damn good growth pattern.  Full text...

Calexico has always been about taking that diversity and blending everything together. I appreciate that. But this time, the album's a one-trick pony. Sure, there's "Roka," but that feels like an afterthought to placate the old fans.   Full text...

It might not be what you've come to expect from Calexico, but it's the act's most fetching album to date.  Full text...

It isn't like Garden Ruin is a bad album, it runs rings around records that will get four times the airplay and six times the sales, but All Systems Red aside, it never really gets too far off the ground.  Full text...

Garden Ruin is an album of lush instrumentation and meaningful verses that begs for innumerable listens.  Full text...

The basic folk- and country-rock settings of songs like "Bisbee Blue", "Nom de Plume" and "Lucky Dime" are embellished with customary Calexico textures of accordions, horns and chamberlin.   Full text...

Calexico will certainly make a truly great record, but 'Garden Ruin' isn’t quite it.   Full text...