Look backward into any indigenous American music, and two things will immediately strike you: first, no matter what present-day genre you start with (folk, blues, country, etc.), the further back you go, the more the musics begin to sound alike: that is, the more the musics' common roots become audible. And the second aspect you'll probably notice is that American music, in its roots, tends quite often to be rather dark and haunted (nostalgic evocations of good old-timey music aside). One could argue that American music is always born under a looming threat of death: starvation and murder, slavery and exile, or the less concrete but no less killing threat of spiritual decay seem ever-present right from each music's formative moments. Both bands under review here (who share key personnel) tap into the gnarled roots of American musics, and even though neither band is averse to the most modern studio-oriented music-making techniques (loops, samples, etc.), both integrate these into an array of acoustic guitars, banjos, mandolins, accordions, as well as electric guitars, basses, and the usual rock-band orthodoxy. Of the two, Califone hews a bit more closely to traditional instrumentation and approach. "Dock Boggs" (after the Appalachian banjo player) is based on one of Boggs' tunes, and several songs feature backwoods-style guitar. Not that you'd confuse this with some revivalist production - leader Tim Rutili structures many songs on loops, and the sound treatment is distinctly current. Yet religious imagery inhabits the lyrics, even when they also dwell in more modern, urban margins: "Jesus drains electric fences to fill you again" runs a key lyric in the CD's first track. The promise and threat of apocalypse seem to glow redly behind the scrim of a city's decrepitude, as if in a moment the slightest tear could send that flaming light pouring through. In contrast to the Califone CD, which often feels very like the work of one man (Tim Rutili), Sin Ropas sounds more like a band project. The band is led by Tim Hurley (also appearing on the Califone CD), formerly of Red Red Meat, and features Danni Iosello (sometimes of Califone) on drums and percussion and Noel Kupersmith (Brokeback, Chicago Underground) on bass. As a collaboration, the album seems a bit less haunted and spectral, a bit less half of another world. Aside from the more abstract questions of sound and mood, Sin Ropas demonstrate great songwriting facility as well. A good example is the chorus of "Snakes in Shoes." The lyrics literally tell us that "I don't miss California" - but the last word is stretched across three and half bars in a musical portrait of loss and longing. Placing that emotional register in the music rather than more directly in the lyrics leaves open whether the singer misses California (despite his words) or whether it's something else he misses - a subtlety characteristic of the brilliant, near-sculptural arrangements throughout this album. "Tender Facial Rake," by contrast, is nearly a conventional rock tune, powered as it is by a crunchy, almost Keith Richards-like rhythm guitar sound, but the mix gives as much prominence to space, Hurley's grainy, understated vocals, and a pair of maracas whose part seems to act as a brake to the rest of the track's forward momentum. Both CDs bracingly bring forth the presence of the old within the new and remind listeners just how much territory remains mapless, mysterious, and unformed.

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