We love Alejandro Escovedo.  Everyone loves Alejandro Escovedo.   He feels the love. Hollered as much on Bourbonitis Blues way back in 1999:  “Everybody says they love me / But I don’t know why.”  (And for the record, he does know why—he’s just being coy.)

Every once in a while, however, No Depression's "Artist of the Decade" tosses off a world-class stinker. Remember The Boxing Mirror’s “Take Your Place”? Not the Stonesy “alternate take” appended to the disc, but the absurd official cut, New Wave nonsense with a synthesizer.  Not bad enough for you?  How about “Looking for Love” off the same album?  Sounds like someone broke into the vault and tried to steal back the 80s. (Why the hell did he hire John Cale to produce the thing, anyway?  The guy couldn’t find his way around a twenty-first century studio with a guide dog and a Hoover cane.)

Escovedo’s latest, Real as an Animal (2008), is a big dumb rock album--and that, in case you think we're always being snide, is a compliment. The disc is catchy-as-hell, chock full of exuberant riffs, and hooks that stick. And it plays well live, too. The June 26th CD Release show at the Continental Club in Austin was one of the best shows we've seen--by anyone--in years.

The album's fifth track, however, “Sensitive Boys," is enough to make you run crying for mommy. Not only is the premise of the song a bit hokey, but by the time producer Tony Visconti finishes with it, we've got a corny chord change, a cloying strings arrangement, and backup singers crooning "Here they come / Watch 'em run," "Don't you let 'em / Get you down," and "Needs you more / Than ever now." And f*cking hell, to top it all off, the song closes with an awful saxophone solo and a guitar lick heavy on the cheeze pedal.