Mireya Ramos & The Poor Choices — Sin Fronteras

It doesn’t take much deductive reasoning, or even a sensitive ear, to pick up the commonalities between country music and ranchera. But if you need the point illustrated, Mireya Ramos & The Poor Choices will do it for you while knocking your socks off. The six-piece band never misses a beat throughout Sin Fronteras, cruising like a school of barracuda through honky-tonk, ballads, boleros, rock’n’roll, and providing a heady mix of everything that makes American music a beautiful synergy.

Ramos is no stranger to pioneering music, establishing herself and her band La Flor de Toloache as one of the first all-female mariachi bands. On Sin Fronteras, Ramos displays her range with casual grace. The album alternates between country and ranchero classics, emphasizing what one might thing of as “outside” influences on the tracks you might least expect it. “Blue Bayou” unfurls with horns and percussion that are not typically paired with Elvis, while “Hay Unos Ojos” glides along in waltz territory — though Ramos’ voice reaches emotional heights that would never have been permissible with the classic Nashville sound.

Slim Hanson of the Poor Choices takes the lead on a few songs, such as the faithful cover of “There Stands the Glass.” The pathos comes from the swell of instruments that elevates the Webb Pierce classic to the gauzy delicacy of an old Hollywood movie. Hanson and Ramos are electric in their duet, the original song “Yesterday’s Coffee.” (Longtime Adobe & Teardrops favorite Betse Ellis lends a particularly expressive fiddle to the proceedings.)

The album’s originals feel of a piece with the songs that inspired them. The ageless “Denial Ain’t a River In Egypt” and “King Nothin'” illustrate the universality of these branches of music — forms that are born of the same experiences and places. In the face of these gorgeous songs, the things that seemingly divide our two countries feel trivial — they can and will be transcended by something far greater.