Los Lobos: Good Morning Aztlan : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Good Morning Aztlan finds Los Lobos dispensing with the atmospherics and experimentation that marked much of their Nineties work and returning to their early bread and butter: roots rock spiked with R&B, soul and folk sounds they absorbed growing up among Mexican immigrants in East L.A. The title track, based on a fuzzy, dirt-simple riff and two-step backbeat, is the most propulsive among half a dozen fast ones, and the slinky rhythms of "Maria Christina" and "Luz de Mi Vida" are beefed up by horns, accordion and Afro-Cuban percussion. Pristine production casts tales of rural restlessness and friendship in full-on Technicolor, and with oblique references to the murder of singer-guitarist Cesar Rosas' wife casting a pall over some of the down-tempo numbers, Aztlan is all we could ask from these twenty-nine-year vets: a record as poignant as it is rollicking, and a welcome return to form.