There's a plastic cup full of Coke and ice sitting in a shoe on the dashboard of a car that's driving on railroad tracks towards the mountains on the horizon. Cursed with the knowledge that there's very often an inverse relationship between the coolness of a CD cover and the coolness of the music on the CD, I wasn't expecting much from this one. However, once I realized that Howe is Howe Gelb of Giant Sand, things started looking up a bit. And then when I finally got around to actually listening to the thing...well let's just say that my faith in cool covers has been mightily restored.

Alt-country isn't the right tag for this mostly quiet, pretty music, but Alt-something-or-other is. I'm never quite sure where there songs are going to go, whether they're heading toward slow burning train wreck blues, a fuzzed out space jam or a slightly grungy acoustic folk ditty. The one thing that holds them all together is Gelb's rough, quiet voice and his clever down-but-not-out lyrics. There are a bunch of guests on this disc (John Parish, Grandaddy, Giant Sand, Candy Prune) and the songs were recorded in various studios, vans and college radio stations in the US and abroad -- both factors which no doubt contribute to the diversity of the material. There's not too much diversity, though; Confluence hangs together well, giving off a slightly worn out and tired but still hopeful vibe throughout its seventeen tracks.

Dylan, The Delgados, Lou Reed... I won't try to name names for each of the tunes on this CD. Think smart, rusty, warm, clever, pretty...that's about as close as I can come to describing Confluence as a whole. If the cover doesn't grab you, the songs will.