When Columbus and his men landed on the shores of what is now the Dominican Republic in 1492, they were met by a group of Taino Indians who greeted the newcomers with a song called the areito. Shortly after the performance, the Spaniards slaughtered their Taino welcome party (and eventually all the rest of the Tainos), so the areito remains a lost song, a mystery – and for Dominican singer-songwriter Juan Luis Guerra, a symbol of cultures lost and rediscovered, of violence, conquest and resistance.

Framing an album with such an evocative symbol as Guerra does (he opens and closes with brief impressionistic re-creations of the Taino music) is a bold and interesting move – if only Areito's music were as adventurous as the concept. Guerra's previous album, Bachata Rosa, sold over 4 million copies worldwide, and the shy, studious songwriter from Santo Domingo suddenly became a mega-pop star in every country in which Spanish is spoken. Areito, more than a year in the making, suffers from follow-up syndrome: It sticks to Bachata's formulas, while shifting somewhat self-consciously toward middle-of-the-road Latin pop.

Missing are the flawless, Beatlesque love songs, the dance-floor dazzlers and steamy poetry that kept Bachata at the top of the Billboard Latin charts for years. Nevertheless, Guerra does toss off a topnotch melody or two, and he continues to prove a wiz of an arranger, adept at assimilating and breathing new life into the rhythms and music of his own and other cultures (on "El Costo de la Vida" –"The Cost of Living"– Guerra transforms a soukous by Zaire's Diblo Dibala into a bubbly merengue romp).

Areito remains a cautious sequel, but Guerra is so talented that even his holding patterns often make for worthwhile listening. (RS 654)

DAISANN MCLANE