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Jan 17, 2018The intimacy and evocative atmosphere of previous releases has been retained, but there’s a fresh, barnstorming spirit brought by the team surrounding the core duo of Joey Burns and John Convertino: where earlier releases sometimes felt too meticulously crafted, this one has the sound of a proper band, its members constantly egging each other into uncertain territory.
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Mar 22, 2018A defining blend of assurance and intrigue makes Calexico’s music come across as both so sumptuous and so surreal.
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Jan 26, 2018By turns gentle and bold, traditional and boundary-pushing, The Thread That Keeps Us is another fine example of Calexico's ever-broadening horizons.
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Jan 26, 2018After nine albums, it takes effort to make a record that sounds as vibrant as this, without losing the very basis of your original appeal. Calexico have managed it.
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Q MagazineJan 17, 2018This is their strong set of songs in years. [Feb 2018, p.108]
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MojoJan 17, 2018If the band have upped the musical chaos, there's still an unashamedly romantic feel. [Feb 2018, p.98]
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UncutJan 17, 2018A song cycle that straddles inescapable anxiety and persistent optimism. [Feb 2018, p.24]
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Feb 23, 2018Less poignant than Edge of the Sun, but more pointed and direct in its message of hope embedded in the countless layers of uncertainty, the band reaches past its previous efforts without trepidation.
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Jan 26, 2018Calexico have made records that sound like this one before, but they’ve never made one with quite this much fight in it.
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Feb 14, 2018There’s more of an improvisational focus to a lot of Thread, where they take on themes such as immigration policy and ecological concerns with their usual storytelling flair. It does have a familiar, intuitive touch; this is Calexico, after all. But the duo never does things with little effort or care.
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Jan 26, 2018In The Thread That Keeps Us, Calexico have learned to let go a little, to let nature take over. The result is surprisingly comforting.
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Apr 19, 2018Hazy, painterly, and completely unpredictable, it's all veiled in a unifying mellowness.
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Jan 29, 2018In the end, The Thread that Keeps Us is a good Calexico record, still it doesn’t have outstanding peaks. It flows gently down the stream, yet besides a few memorable moments (all of them coming from the band’s comfort zone) there’s nothing to go crazy about.
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Jan 26, 2018On The Thread That Keeps Us, Calexico have splurged. They’ve flexed their muscles and had a go at everything, with the possible exception of speed metal. Some of it has worked, but not all of it. Hopefully, the next album will hone down their sound and focus it like a laser beam.
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Jan 17, 2018It’s uneven, certainly, but worth panning for the gold.
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Jan 17, 2018While Calexico have been bridging their influences and styles for long enough to be able to take risks, never letting an overriding mission statement cloud an album’s quality, here the foot is ever so slightly let off the gas, and the breathing space allows gems to be uncovered.
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Jan 22, 2018There are some truly enjoyable moments on Calexico's latest--but they're vastly overshadowed by at turns annoying or just boring tracks, bogged down in an overly long record.