Califone Roots & Crowns CD

With ROOTS AND CROWNS--their best record to date--Ben Massarella and Tim Rutili's run with Califone has become as long and accomplished as their tenure with their previous outfit, Red Red Meat. ROOTS AND CROWNS perfects Califone's recipe of combining roots sounds and instruments with post-rock cinematic textures, and establishes the band as a sort of alternate Wilco, another Chicago-based outfit with one foot in Americana and the other in exploration.

Whereas Wilco's songs lean toward the former, Rutili and Co. avidly embrace the latter despite the traditionalist underpinnings. Strummed acoustic guitars and lullaby harmonies intermingle with percolating loops throughout ROOTS AND CROWNS, particularly on standouts like "Spider's House" and "The Orchids," a Psychic TV cover. While at times slightly monochromatic, the album succeeds on Rutili's appetite for oddball sonics and the band's ability to make the experimental sound easy.Spin (p.97) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[With] sleepy folk/blues guitar, ramshackle percussion, quirky noises, and hazy-snap-shot lyrics."
CMJ (p.37) - "[M]elodically sweet....The band is still most cozy in their somber, creaky, mythologized Appalachian cabin..."
No Depression (p.104) - "Among all the tape manipulations and sonic improvisations...Califone also locates songs that are quite naturalistic."