Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers: Unida Cantina

After a few albums of playing around with (and having varying degrees of success) varying styles including reggae and pure pop, Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers have returned to their Southwestern rock roots with Unida Cantina. While this return to the style of their best work is welcome, there's a certain generic feeling to almost all the tracks on Unida Cantina that makes the album wholly enjoyable upon listening but also lacks that certain intangible something that makes a song or album stick with you for days. To be fair, Clyne's work dating back to the Refreshments has always had a universal, everyman quality but Roger has always been able to transcend that with either his spirit or lyrics and sense of humor. There's just not as much a sense of that on Unida Cantina. Tracks like "Love is the Road," "Go With the Flow" and "Small World" could seemingly be written by almost any songwriter and lack the original voice that Roger has demonstrated in the past. If it seems like I didn't like the album, that's not true. Even the songs I have issues with are enjoyable on the surface and a number of tracks (The horn accented opener "All Over the Radio," the Mexicano ballad "Marie," the power pop of "Just Got High" and the mid-tempo jangle of the closing "Play On") are fantastic. I just wish the whole album was up to those standards. Unida Cantina is far from a disaster but it doesn't measure up with Clyne's best work either.

Rating: 3

Track Listing:

1. "All Over the Radio (3:14)
2. "Heaven on a Paper Plate: (3:43)
3. "Dinero" (3:44)
4. "Love is the Road" (4:14)
5. "Go With the Flow" (3:37)
6. "Marie" (3:57)
7. "Empty Highway" (3:52)
8. "Small World" (3:56)
9. "Unida Cantina" (1:18)
10. "Just Got High" (3:37)
11. "Today Belongs to the Light" (4:37)
12. "Paper Airplanes" (3:42)
13. "Play On" (3:22)