Ray Raposa, the extravagantly bearded mainstay of Castanets, has
been trading in elusively weird folk and country since his impressive
2004 debut, Cathedral. Raposa is an unabashed risk-taker,
continuously bathing his prettiest songs in unexpected noise,
alternately pushing his adenoidal warble to the front or washing it in
tons of echo. Last year’s City of Refuge was his most
straightforward album, portending a further downplay of his
experimental edge. Raposa is as difficult to pin down as ever on
Texas Rose, the Thaw & the Beasts. It contains several
tracks that start simple (the country strum “Rose,” the droning “My
Heart”) but eventually give way to unexpected walls of noise. The
rhythmic base of “Worn From the Fight (With Fireworks)” is a rickety
drum machine, and “No Trouble” buries processed vocals beneath layers
of impenetrable bass and guitar squalls. Unfortunately, all this
claptrap is window dressing for songs lacking a melodic center. Raposa
is at his best when he sounds a bit more confident, like on “Down the
Line, Love” and the superb “Dance, Dance.” It seems like Raposa has a
great record in him and that he’ll eventually find the middle ground
between his sometimes solid songcraft and a need to wander. Texas
Rose is not that record.
— Chris Drabick
This article appears in Sep 30 – Oct 6, 2009.
