The Mavericks Brand New Day

On their ninth studio album, 2017's Brand New Day, the Mavericks kick things off with "Rolling Along," a sprightly tejano-flavored number that seems to be a testament to optimism, but on closer inspection turns out to be a ringing endorsement of smoking reefer. The track's combination of superb craft, retro style, and a playful insistence on not taking things too seriously puts it in league with a significant percentage of the Mavericks' body of work, and that's certainly their modus operandi on Brand New Day. There are more vintage pop and Latin influences at work on this LP than the group's biggest hits of the '90s, but anyone who has been following their post-Trampoline career will have no trouble recognizing this as the Mavericks, and Raul Malo's voice is still smooth as silk and big as all outdoors. As for his collaborators, the core instrumentalists (Eddie Perez on guitars, Jerry Dale McFadden on keys, and Paul Deakin on drums and melodic percussion) are still masters of stylisti