he Band of Blacky Ranchette is a band with a rotating/random cast helmed by desert-country troubadour Howe Gelb. It is a band that plays host to his illustrious friends and indulges his tendency to ask them to sing and play off the cuff at odd moments. Having not heard the two prior Blacky Ranchette LP's, I can only view this baby as it stands. And it's a serviceable, pleasant, if unspectacular record, the kind of album that has you searching the thesaurus for more synonyms for "good".

A big Calexico fan, I have never sought out Gelb's main project, Giant Sand. Seeing Still Lookin' Good to Me's guest list, though - a ridiculous who's who of alt-americana anyone else on the planet would have great difficulty assembling, I felt this would be a good introduction to Howe's world. The record features performances and cameos by the likes of M. Ward, Neko Case, Dallas Good, Calexico's John Convertino and Joe Burns, Richard Buckner, Chan Marshall, Grandaddy's Jason Lytle and Lambchop's Kurt Wagner. Disappointingly for me, as a fan of all the above artists, most of these luminaries of alt-Americana are reduced to supporting bit parts in Gelb's desert ruminations about monogamy, female devils, the benefits of bad karma and the crowded cosmos. Folks expecting true, meaty collaborations will be disappointed; Marshall's entire contribution has her speaking three lines for 10 seconds. This is essentially a showcase of Gelb's songs, with assistance by his friends.

The first track, “Train Singer's Song”, showcases Gelb's deep, distinctive narrative voice as he tells the tale of a railway worker whose callused frame wishes it were somewhere else amid Convertino's stuttering drums and the ubiquitous moaning pedal steel. The story and song are aided by Gelb's unique storytelling method and the powerful finale of crashing cymbals and descending minor chords. It segues into “Searing Wine”, a 59 second hand held field recording of distant guitar and voice where the message is equally far away; Gelb gently tells his companion "it's good to have you down" and the song ends before any sense can be made of it. This is most likely the point. After many listens I am still torn between finding this song a brief, touching lament or a half finished idea. Both explanations have their merits, but, at the very least, it highlights the ambiguity of much of the material on Still Lookin' Good to Me.

"Rusty Tracks" follows, with M. Ward playing simple slide over Gelb's simpler guitar figure as Howe raps out some Beefheart tributin' abstraction about sneaking up on his woman with an axe, dancing with her under a severely cracked mirror ball, all the while holding a "stringer full of Trout Replica Masks." The song is as fractured as the lyrics imply, the arrangement cracked and parched; making the full band country and western swagger of the next track, "Mope-a-long Rides Again," a welcome diversion. Gelb showcases his ability to pit beautiful, humorous lines alongside ridiculous ones as he sings "Never spent the night with the devil/ just a relative similar version" and soon after "They still don't make erasers big enough/ to fit on top of our head." Chanteuse Neko Case provides colour with her estimable pipes, Dallas Good contributes some fine licks and the whole thing rides along in an accomplished, easy manner. It is one of the best tracks here.

Richard Buckner takes the lead vocal on "Getting It Made", sounding astoundingly like M. Ward and dueting with Neko Case by correspondence after Howe deemed it a good idea. It is - Gelb's distinctive Spanish-Americana guitar and piano flourishes and two instruments listed in the liner notes as "Bandonion" and "Slide Mandolin" fill out a beautifully executed country romp about how life's current fortune is the result of bad acts in the previous life; the song given all the more weight by the two fine, distinct voices singing it.

The rendering of the traditional "Working on the Railroad" with Jason Lytle is a highlight with its upbeat drums, Gelb's brief distorted guitar solo and the energetic interplay between Lytle's thin, lo-fi vocal harmonies and Gelb's typically strong, deep, confident singing. A similarly successful collaboration is Gelb having Kurt Wagner singing Gelb's lyrics while driving him to the airport. Gelb corrects Wagner at various points and a local traffic cop interrupts the recording. The completed song finishes up as dry and charming with its effect outweighing the sense of novelty, due to Wagner's wry, knowing voice giving the chorus line "Paradise don't come without mistakes" a weary resonance. Elsewhere Gelb is less successful. A third of the songs ("Under the Table," Bored "lil Devil," "Left Again," "Moons of Impulse") drift by without impact. The only redeeming feature of the upright piano jaunt "Airstream" is the line "But the devil was a woman/but she didn't want to be/just her disability."

Gelb saves his best track for last. "Square" is a live recording featuring former Giant Sand bandmates Joe Burns (cello) and John Convertino (drums). It is Gelb's moving tribute ballad to a loved one ("Big old breath of unspoiled air..../You're way too real for wide appeal”) and boasts a refreshing lyrical directness not often displayed elsewhere on the album.

Despite almost every track being recorded by different people and almost all of them being recorded in different locations, the fact that Gelb wrote or co-wrote every track lends the album its flow; there is a constant in the buzzing acoustic guitar strings and rough but interesting guitar figures. Gelb's non-linear observations about love and life give the record a strange feeling of wholeness. There is a duality to Gelb's method of often recording on the fly - the flubbed notes and the obvious rawness of the recording lend Still Lookin' Good to Me the kind of dusty authenticity its 70's country + western cover art suggests. It does, however, also give the impression at times that much of it is simply tossed off.

This record did provoke enough interest in me to get me checking out Gelb's back catalogue, in particular finding some of his more polished studio records (such as the acclaimed recent LP The Listener). Gelb is an accomplished lyricist, his inversion and adoption of cliché and myth throughout is often hilarious and moving. His voice is strong and in combination with his more sincere lyrical moments, occasionally poignant. Despite some lapses into mediocrity, the quality of Still Lookin' Good to Me is generally consistent; that is drifting up and around good without ever crossing over into great. At 42 minutes it is a concise, if unremarkable, enjoyably weird trip through Gelb's unique alt-country desert.