It wasn't just tumbleweeds and lizards that were carried across the horizon with Garden Ruin's stop gap musical experiments. Calexico modernized and in the process loss some of its Tex-Mex charm in pursuit of indie-rock idioms. Any good meteorologist or (urban) cowboy will tell you that loose soil erosion in one place means a deposit of it in another. Carried to Dust is that other place and the sand it carried is chock full of the choice minerals Calexico fans cherish. Te resulting dust formula is not as interesting as older experiments. Dust is not the mysterious film noir Western that was 2003's Feast of Wire was but its no slouch either. With the exception of the moody indie-rock squalls heard on "Man Made Lake," this new album leaves Garden Ruin behind on Route 66. Collaboration somewhat hindered Joey Burns and John Convertino, the duo behind most of Calexico's globe-trotting music, but here they draw heavily on their favorite sounds for this sixth outing. Sure, there's plenty of interaction between the band members and their old cohort Sam Beam on the soft flamenco-dub of "House of Valparaiso." Multi-instrumentalist Jacob Valenzuela steps up for the organ and south of the border horn line of Spanish-language "Inspiración." Elsewhere, Jairo Zavala, sidles up to Burn's mic for the widescreen chorus of "Victor Jara's Hands."Spaghetti Western dalliances ("The News About William"), Portuguese fado , mariachi shuffles ("Victor Jara's Hands"), and the veteran group's signature snare-and-bass interplay subside the musical dust storms of collaboration. Though Covertino has found his singer's voice he shares the mic well. A pure country song ballad like "Slowness,” shines with folk chanteuse, Pieta Brown.Calexico albums are usually not full of distinct narratives. They serve more as tone poems or travelogues for suffocating heat, the respite of oases, dusty ghost towns, and moribund landscapes. This time out there's a phantom lyrical narrative that centers on the story of a Hollywood writer who hits the road after the strike. The jovial wordless chorus of "Writer's Minor Holiday" portends a young man enjoying the freedom of the open road and some "Irish whiskey glasses" along the way. Calexico rarely relinquishes their purposely unspecific lyrical themes.The album's final section slinks into moonlighted musical themes that aren't as interesting as tend to pale in comparison to the lure of that first third of nuggets. This is all culminates in the spooky closer "Contention City" - where an ambient curtain of electric piano and glockenspiel resonated alongside steel guitar. The song has the synergic touch of Tortoise's Doug McCombs. For an album that escapes the collaboration within Calexico, Dust entrances the ear when it pulls away from the microscopic indie-rock meets the Southwest world that Calexico's inhabited for so many years.The small problem with this new release is that some songs are eerily reminiscent of Feast of Wire - namely "Victor Jara's Hands" of “Quattro (World Drifts In)" and "Fractured Air" of "Dub Latina.” These similarities are mostly because the band have created a distinctive sound that they've finally chosen to capitalize on. Another musical dust storm may slough off much of what they've done on Dust but Calexico's jazzy snare-and-bass heartbeat remains. 78%"Two Silver Trees" - CalexicoCalexico on MySpace