Bloomberg News Review of T&C

Los Lobos Takes the Pulse of Urban Life in `Town and the City’

By Douglas Lytle

Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) — The new album by Los Lobos, the lauded band
from East Los Angeles, begins quietly with a kick drum and snare
leading off a hangdog shuffle. It’s a simple pulse that anchors “The
Town and the City,” the group’s 15th album in a 23-year career.

That heartbeat is important. It’s an affirmation of life running
through the 13 stories comprising this ambitious chronicle of urban
existence that ranks among the band’s greatest achievements.

Documented here are the generally honest folks who make your
expensive coffee each morning, deliver your packages ordered on the
Internet, then go to bed with aching feet, scraping to get by and
keep their families intact. These are stories of people who struggle
to keep their heads high while gang violence swirls around and the
pull of drugs and alcohol takes down family members.

“Here in the valley/Bread on the table/Work through the day/For as
long as we are able,” guitarist David Hidalgo sings in “The
Valley,” the surrealistic, ambling first track.

While this is hardly a bitter record, the view is often bleak.
Consider “Hold On”: “Hold on/Hold on to every breath/And if I make
it to the sunrise/Do it all over again/Do it all over again/And I’m
killin’ myself just to keep alive/Killin’ myself to survive.”

Although many probably only know this band as the “La Bamba” guys
from the movie of the same name, Los Lobos is wildly more than just
three-chord roots rock. It toured extensively with the Grateful Dead
and explored the more ambient, arty edges of contemporary rock with
side projects like the Latin Playboys.

Smeared by Feedback

As in “Kiko,” the band’s much-loved record from 1992, those
experiences have filtered into the music here, with the songs smeared
by feedback, murmuring, ghostly voices and distorted horns.

There’s a sound and a beat here for everyone, from the Santana-
inflected lilt of “No Puedo Mas” to the bouncy pop of “Free Up.”
Things swing a bit with “The Road to Gila Bend” and “Chuco’s
Cumbia,” a dancing folk song that pulses with horns and Cesar
Rosas’s growling voice.

“Little Things” is anthemic, opening with ringing chords
reminiscent of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” and delves
into the meaningful things that are buried close around us every day,
the little things “we never see.”

The careful listener will keep hearing that steady pulse through the
music, especially on the downbeat “If You Were Only Here Tonight.”

Heartbreak and Sorrow

This is a record that could only have been made by musicians who have
spent years together, experiencing their own successes, heartbreak
and sorrow, while also endlessly prowling the streets, soaking up the
culture and people. It is at once a celebration of community and also
a wake for its destruction.

The record closes on a grim, haunting note in “The Town,” with what
is presumably Hidalgo’s guitar tracing long, languid lines through a
cinematic vista of an unsettled, crime-ridden neighborhood at
twilight. In the background, the kick drum is offering that steady,
irresistible pulse. A pulse of life.

“The Town and City” is released by Hollywood Records in the U.S.
and by EMI overseas. The U.S. retail price is $18.99.

(Douglas Lytle writes about music for Bloomberg News. The opinions
expressed are his own.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Douglas Lytle at
dlytle@bloomberg.net