Don’t be confused, this is in fact Giant Sand, the brainchild of Howe Gelb. Since Gelb has bulked up on his roster of musicians this time around, though, it only seemed fitting that he double up on the word \u201cGiant\u201d as well. Named after the town he has called home for four decades now, Tucson<\/i> is a self-described country rock opera with a storyline, one of the few avenues Gelb hasn’t explored in his three-decade plus career. <\/p>\n
This album tells a story about a man with a boyish and idealistic demeanor who leaves the city and his former self for a life-altering excursion, and it finds Gelb and company taking on perhaps their most intriguing listen in recent years. The boy finds plenty of distractions along the way, including Mexican jail and the hope of new love. The plot twists and turns, which only makes sense, considering Tucson<\/i> is over an hour long. <\/p>\n
With an additional string section, pedal steel musician, and female guest vocals, Giant Giant Sand certainly live up to the country rock label, but they also take on hints of honky tonk swagger, blues traces, and gritty alt-country. On \u201cAdios Loser,\u201d they put Mariachi trumpets and accordions to good use, invoking a sound not far from more recent Calexico albums. The bluegrass moments are abundant, from \u201cThing Like That\u201d and the maudlin \u201cPlain Of Existence.\u201d It’s far from a subdued affair, though. On \u201cThe Song Belongs To You,\u201d things get restless with flamenco stabs, and it is probably the most upbeat part of the disc. The best moment comes on a jazzy, sexy duet with Lonna Kelley, \u201cReady Or Not,\u201d which is an instantly memorable track with timeless appeal. <\/p>\n
After 25+ albums, you’d think that Giant Sand would be on autopilot by now, but Gelb continues to reach into a deep bag of creativity. Anyone who enjoys anything resembling country rock, blues, and dusty, graceful Americana will find Tucson<\/i> an alluring, accomplished listen with a high level of sophistication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":31088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8921],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-42773","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-giant-giant-sand","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42773"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42773"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}