Audio By Carbonatix
A couple of years ago I sat in a New York news channel’s green room for an hour and a half waiting for Mavericks front man Raul Malo to finish soundchecking for a three-minute on-air live slot he was scheduled to perform in support of his majorly slept-on 2001 solo album, Today. After I exhausted every small-talk topic in existence with his publicist (and even gone around the corner for expense-accounted pizza), the man told me with a sigh that I might consider heading home and hooking up with Malo on the phone the next day–a bummer, to be sure, but a pretty apt illustration of Malo’s attention to detail. On The Mavericks’ new self-titled disc (the follow-up to 1998’s Trampoline and the bookend to what bassist Robert Reynolds calls a “hiatus turned into a breakup turned into a reunion”) Malo indulges that attention as ever, frosting bouncy Roy Orbison rockers with layers of bright-sky horns and creamy keyboards, pairing his resonant croon with reverbed electric twang, swirling flecks of his Cuban-American heritage into slo-mo ballads perfect for the midnight beachside rendezvous in your mind. Onstage with an ensemble whose expense-accounted pizza I’m glad I wasn’t paying for, Malo reproduced Today‘s vintage flair with road-dog aplomb, so expect a similar depth of sound from these back-in-the-saddle lovers-not-fighters. Without waiting an hour and a half, either.
When news happens, Dallas Observer is there —
Your support strengthens our coverage.
We’re aiming to raise $30,000 by December 31, so we can continue covering what matters most to you. If the Dallas Observer matters to you, please take action and contribute today, so when news happens, our reporters can be there.
