All My Friends Are Funeral Singers

It’s for good reason that the New York Times used the word “enthralling” to describe Califone’s 2006 Roots & Crowns. The Chicago band has long worked with sounds rooted in Americana and folk, nurtured on post-rock and experimental indie noodling, and Roots & Crowns was a crowning moment, indeed. All My Friends Are Funeral Singers is just as satisfying, spectacularly constructed with loving care to every detail, be it craftily stuttering static, a perfectly placed bit of “found” noise, or darkly evocative strings that avoid weepiness. Califone songs are often equal parts masquerade and bold statement, and that’s what makes listening so pleasurable. “Polish Girls” coalesces various textures and sounds into a near-rock melody, just before it dissolves and morphs into the lovely and delicate “1928”; a kalimba (African thumb piano) transforms into a mewling, hillbilly pastiche of stringed instruments on “Salt.” The hand-clap-and-foot-stomp bite of “Ape-like” emerges from the faintly Wilco-flavored “Buñuel,” but gives way to 44 seconds of atmospherics before the breathless and fragile “Evidence” floats into the ether. Leave your ears wide open.