After an invitation from friend and veteran of Mexico City’s music community Miguel Servin, Seattleite Brent Amaker decided to take up the offer to record an album with his band down in the Mexican capital. There was one condition from Amaker though: he wanted a mariachi band. “If I’m gonna record a record in Mexico City, it’s gotta be a Mexican record,” Amaker explained of his reasoning. As the old adage goes: go big or go home.
After finding the right mariachi players in Plaza Garibaldi with Servin, Amaker hit the studio with them for two sessions, the guest players adding brass, strings, and collective vocals to the songs. Returning the recordings to the States, Amaker’s Rodeo band completed overdubs to combine the work of the two bands while the Rodeo’s guitarist Johnny Nails took care of the mixing duties. It was a collective and international effort that aimed to showcase the best of both worlds: the gusto and liveliness of mariachi music, the tight and dynamic playing of the Rodeo band, and Amaker’s dour monotone vocals tying the whole thing together.
On paper it sounds like a fun excursion, if not a welcome injection of ebullience to follow on the return to form of their 2024 album Philaphobia. The resulting new album, Vaquero (the Mexican term for cowboy, naturally), has the matching black cowboy outfit ensemble sounding enlivened at best, but mostly like a band bridging a gap for a TV special. The mariachi band bring a sprightly exuberance here and there, punching up versions of previous songs from Amaker’s catalogue – but mostly they are just embellishments to some distinctly middling tracks.
“Left My Heart in Tulsa” is like a Johnny Cash outtake, a little schmaltzy and familiar, but distinctly mediocre at its heart. The rhythm of “Broken Promises” feels slightly off, like the two original recording sessions and the overdubs didn’t quite sync up. Trite lines from Amaker like “Bones heal faster than the heart / I know this much is true” don’t help it either, his hard-man-feigning-to-be-tender schtick not adding to the conviction. Elsewhere “I Need Love” hides a fizzy backdrop of bass and drums as it goes to elicit a laugh. “I need a lot of space / I need my dog / I need love / But I don’t know where that fits in with all my other needs,” Amaker confesses, but the joke lands even less on its second iteration of the chorus let alone from another spin of the song.
When the mix of mariachi cowboy music works, it’s often in short bursts. “You’re No Good” stays shy of the two minute mark, and the brevity adds to the excitement and flair as Amaker airs some dirty laundry in public. “You’re no good / You’re bad news / This one argument I will not lose,” he insists. On opening track “Tequila Cerveza” the sharp mariachi horns and violin add a new vitality to the track originally from 2013’s Year of the Dragon. It’s great introductory music, Amaker welcoming you to the show like a boozy MC at a gritty Vegas club, while the maniacal call and response laughter add a strange bent to it. It’s got a good vibe going and it feels mean to call it out, but it goes on much too long, taking up almost 20% of Vaquero’s overall runtime.
Even though it ends on something of a bum note, final track “Man In Charge” (a revamp of the 2017 song) distils a lot of better elements here into a neat package that finds a happy medium. The vibrant rhythm and piercing brass wrap up the feeling of the oncoming freight train Amaker mentions in the lyrics. “Goddamn, get your head together,” he orders, almost like it’s a jibe at himself. It’s a telling comment, even if it isn’t deliberately self-referential. “Sometimes I get clumsy with the things that I love most,” he sings earlier on in the album, and it feels like a fitting take on what we have with Vaquero: it means well, is a fun holiday of sorts, but boils down to a lot of additional musical zest on top of mediocre songwriting. Alongside the mariachi band, once again the Rodeo do much of the interesting legwork while Amaker sounds keen to make the most of a good opportunity but is lacking in overall inspiration. The attempt to go big wasn’t as sizeable as hoped, but you can’t fault a guy for taking up a chance to try something new.
