Right before going into the studio for this latest album, the mostly-Austin-based icon shelved ideas for a wholly new record to instead rework 14 songs from his impressive back catalog spanning more than forty years of rootsy rock and punk influences. Revisiting material isn’t exactly a new concept for Alejandro Escovedo. He also reworked 2018’s The Crossing as La Cruzada (2021), with the lyrics translated into Spanish.
These tracks were recorded at Waveroof Studio in Castel Bolognese, Italy, with Italian session players. It turns out these players had actually traveled to Austin as teens in the ’80s to see Jimmie Vaughan, so for them this is that same sort of circling back yet pulling the music forward.
These reworked tracks will likely send fans scrambling to hear the originals again and compare, so it might be best to allow some time to ingest this, song by song. Indeed, many reviews do go track by track, comparing the originals to these fresh takes. It’s tempting to do the same here. Instead, might as well hear from the man himself (see video link at bottom).
The opening track, “John Conquest,” was a driving rocker on his 1997 Buick MacKane album The Pawn Shop Years. The track was a swipe at a local music critic of the same name. Like many of these tracks, this new version seems to double down on the original, with even harder and more distorted guitars and layered riffs, though slightly shortening the track and for some reason shortening the title from its hilarious original title “John Conquest You Have Enough Dandruff on Your Collar to Bread a Veal Cutlet.”
In most of these, the guitars are heavier and more distorted, with more complex layers over digital drum tracks. The drum tracks serve as sort of a sonic counterpoint to the guitars.
Some are more wholly reimagined. His crowd pleaser “Castanets” is reworked as sort of a nod to cumbia and reggae, and the lyrics slightly adapted, so now it’s “Castañuelas.”
“Bury Me” was his lament beginning with “if I should die before I turn 43…” now reworked and released the day he turned 73.
Yet despite all these disparate varied tones and textures, there’s also still a cohesive Escovedo vibe his fans will instantly recognize—it’s all still very him, rocking, a bit broody, hard to categorize or label, as most of the greats are.
In all of these, his vocals are a bit more forward, feeling closer and thus more personal, with more grit and gravitas.
Rather than simply rehashing, these songs feel wholly reimagined, even evolved, with newer layers of meaning that have accreted over the ensuing years. And as fans, it shows us our own layers of meaning accrue and shift with these songs. The net effect is a much deeper, richer, more intensely personal album—for artist and listener—than merely jiggering with new tempos and riffs. He’s bringing them forward beyond their time, rendering them in effect, timeless.
But you don’t even have to be a longtime Escovedo fan to appreciate the breadth and creativity of Echo Dancing. This still works just fine as a standalone—and standout—album of variegated, textured Americana roots rock by one of its more iconic practitioners.
Alejandro Escovedo
Echo Dancing
Yep Roc Records