"The Cordovas are a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week job," clarifies Firstman, who shares the band's roster with drummer Graham Spillman, keyboardist Sevans Henderson, and dueling lead guitarists Lucca Soria and Toby Weaver. "You're always on call to play, to adapt to another man's idea, to pick up a guitar or look at a lyrics sheet. We're eating dinner together, hanging out together, and making art. We don't have rehearsal times, because rehearsal is always. You have to honor the art first, and everything else comes second."

Living in such close quarters — both at home and on the road — has turned Cordovas into a band of brothers. Stop by the band's East Nashville compound and you may find Soria and Weaver picking their way through bluegrass songs inside the barn, while Firstman wraps up a family dinner in the kitchen and Spillman fixes the band's RV outside. There's a communal vibe to the band's existence that bleeds over into their songs, where it's often hard to pinpoint a single person's voice in those thick, swooning harmonies. That Santa Fe Channel is the soundtrack to that communal existence: a collection of songs written together, performed together, and lived together. 

And what a soundtrack it is. There's the Band-influenced boogie-woogie of "Standin' on the Porch," full of blue notes and pedal steel. There's the layered melodies of "I'm the One Who Needs You Tonight," the classic chord changes of "Selfish Loner," the barroom piano of "Step Back Red," and the hungover charm of the album's opener, "This Town's a Drag," which finds Firstman searching for illegal thrills in a dry town. Together, That Santa Fe Channel's nine songs paint the picture of a band on the rise, heading for a horizon whose beauty can match their own.