NYC/ATL-based pop-rockers, cousins Jeb & Clayton Colwell, are paying homage to their roots: they reunited in their hometown of Tucson, AZ to bring “In A Photograph” to life while reigniting their lifelong collaborative partnership. Not since their Hector On Stilts heyday with the 2006 release of “Same Height Relation” (produced by Grammy winner Andres Levin) has the duo shown so much ambition. Recruiting Tucson’s own Bruce Halper on drums (The Sidewinders/RCA) and Tape Op’s Larry Crane to mix (The Shins, Elliott Smith), Colwell harnesses the energy and warmth of their early recordings.

The inklings of the song came to Clayton while he was sitting in his tiny NYC apartment, reading a news article about the growing socio-political divide, unsure of his own future, money worries, his first child on the way, and his father dying of cancer.

“My gaze was drawn into this photograph on the kitchen wall of my dad and me in Mexico standing barefoot in the shallows of an estuary. Our arms around each other, the setting sun gently shining in our eyes and we are smiling.”

“In A Photograph” is a warm embrace and the instrumentation comfort food. Colwell dusts off a couple of treasures from their bin of misfit toys: vintage organ the Baldwin Fun Machine and Cuban tres, both of which were inspired by their collaborations and travels with Levin.

Colwell’s songwriting is often swimming in nostalgia and the music video (directed by Jess Lazar) dives in head first opening with the duo, in their Sunday best, sitting at the bottom of a dried out pool. Like boiling frogs (but in reverse) did they wait too long to move on? Desert lizards Jeb and Clayton are back in their element, baking in the sun once again, forlorn and feeling right at home.