The Iguanas

If You Should Ever Fall on Hard Times should forever lay to rest any notions that the Iguanas can't be a New Orleans band, even while not adhering to any preconceived notions about how one is defined as such. The Iguanas play with some of the more conventional New Orleans sounds – swinging jazz horn arrangements, greasy funk, Latin shuffles – but the result is something that skews more toward the possibilities of roots rock and that genre's own hard-to-find boundaries. So for every accordion flourish that romances tunes such as "Celos Con Mezcal," there is the almost early Rolling Stones vibe that pushes "Dancing for Dollars Again" beyond the party-anthem realm. If You Should Ever is not so much a post-Katrina album as much as it is an attempt to return to a pre-Katrina path of progression. It's heartening to hear the Iguanas get back on that path, however crooked, and to present another head-turning effort. Three stars.