Alejandro Escovedo
Album: Big Station
Label: Decca
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.alejandroescovedo.com

The original Tex-Mex punk rocker, Escovedo has lately found a rich vein of form in the company of co-writer Chuck Prophet and producer Tony Visconti. Big Station is their third album together and, arguably, the most complete alignment of their varying passions for glistening harmonies, rock 'n' roll iconoclasm, glam-punk punch drunk riffs and dusty country roads melancholy.

Man of the World opens the album as it means to go on - a self-effacing, slightly bruised account of a lifetime on the fringes of commercial success. It's a theme he returns to several times: he's been there, done this and that, is glad of it, has learned from it and has done with it, but reserves the right to reminisce fondly from time to time in the name of self-mythology.

Headstrong Crazy Fools takes a wry look at what happens when rock stars start to believe their own hype - Dylan on acid lost his run-in with a hard road and Alejandro knows the mindset only too well. Like many of these songs, it is not so much composed as authored, Escovedo casting the protagonists as narrators of their own memoirs. It's a neat trick only the very finest songwriters ever manage to pull off.

Elsewhere, there's a charming ska/Americana interface on Common Mistake, the deep longing of San Antonio Rain and an acerbic edge to Party People that not even Visconti's production sheen can mask, while the record ends with Savor A Mi, a lovely, gentle kiss that's all cold cervezas and warm nights.

Pure class.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk