Consistency can have a nasty way of backfiring on a band, especially if the band is Los Lobos. If you\u2019re inconsistent like Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen, you get a huge resurgence of acclaim and interest when you release a great album after a series of mediocre albums. But if you\u2019re Los Lobos and you release solid album after solid album, some of their later releases are met with a little more than a shrug from the mainstream community. It\u2019s almost like critics expect it to be good, so why reward the band for consistency? <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like Los Lobos is like Pearl Jam, who have released a series of well-regarded albums but even their most vocal of fans will admit the band has not excelled in the risk-taking department. Colossal Head<\/i>, This Time<\/i>, and Good Morning Aztlan<\/i> had plenty of quirky moments that few rock bands would dare try to replicate. But even the band\u2019s experimentation seems to be greeted with a shrug in the mainstream music press. <\/p>\n
The band has qualified for the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame for more than five years, and judging by the lack of mentions of the band for induction (hell, if The Stooges took this long to get inducted, how long will it take for this band?), it looks like Los Lobos\u2019 status as one of America\u2019s most crucially underrated bands will continue. Which is unfortunate, given that if The Town And The City<\/i> were to have been released by Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, or Bob Dylan, it would have been widely regarded as one of the finest rock albums of the last decade. <\/p>\n
The<\/i> Town And The City<\/i> isn\u2019t necessarily a political album, more like a novel whose theme revolves around immigration. In the driving \u201cThe Road To Gila Bend,\u201d the song\u2019s main character starts out in Nogales and slowly creeps to Tucson. \u201cCan they see me coming? Do they know I\u2019m running?\u201d David Hidalgo sings. <\/p>\n
Music and lyrics-wise, this is the best Los Lobos album to come out of the pike since their 1992 classic Kiko<\/i>. While the latter album mixed dreamy mysticism and hard-charging blues, The Town and the City<\/i> is more straightforward. Hidalgo\u2019s guitar, along with the guitar work of Louie Perez and Cesar Rosas, produce some great rockers, namely on \u201cGila Bend\u201d and \u201cTwo Dogs And A Bone.\u201d The ballads, namely \u201cIf You Were Only Here Tonight\u201d and the Spanish-spoken \u201cLuna,\u201d have a richness that only comes with being in the same band for almost 30 years. <\/p>\n
The band\u2019s full talents converge on \u201cThe City,\u201d a smoky, swirling account of a night in a city. Steve Berlin\u2019s keyboards lightly brush over the guitars and Perez\u2019s drumming leaves just enough room for the song\u2019s dark, sultry mood. A lighthearted party vibe rubs right up against something more sinister in lines like \u201cTwo lovers kissing by the door \/ There\u2019s yelling from the second floor\u201d and \u201cCome on let\u2019s fall down tonight \/ Shoot out all the neon lights.\u201d In the span of about four minutes, the song almost reads like a novella. <\/p>\n
If there is one bum track on the album, it would be \u201cLittle Things.\u201d It\u2019s a good attempt at a ballad, but the vagueness of lines like \u201cLittle things all around me \/ Little things that I could never see\u201d are just too general for even a band like Los Lobos to make affecting. But that song\u2019s flaws are quickly forgotten as the album drives to its beautiful title track closing song. <\/p>\n
The theme of immigration is evident on the title track and especially on \u201cThe Valley\u201d and \u201cGila Bend,\u201d but the band wisely avoids taking sides. Instead, they just tells stories and moves on to the next song. It\u2019s the mark of a band that after 30 years is content in remaining consistent but restless enough to avoid settling. The liner notes state \u201cLos Lobos still are: David Hidalgo, Conrad Lozano, Louie Perez, Cesar Rosas, and Steve Berlin.\u201d It\u2019s a wry wink to anyone who may have forgotten about this band. If they keep releasing albums like The Town And The City<\/i>, hopefully they won\u2019t need to remind anyone they\u2019re still kicking up dust. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":30214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5812],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41861","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-los-lobos","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41861"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}