Los Lobos: Tin Can Trust

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Because Los Lobos enjoy the process of music making as an end in itself, the best of their albums radiate an air of communal pleasure, the likes of which pervades the cryptically titled Tin Can Trust.

Over the thirty years they’ve been together, Los Lobos has remained a folk band at their collective center. In its steady foursquare rhythms under acoustic guitars,“I’ll Burn It Down” recalls nothing if not the Mexican folk band mastering native styles of their earliest days. Yet the jagged electric guitar interval at the center of the cut reminds how the group has assimilated influences of contemporary blues rock.

The Beatlesque chord progression of “On Main Street” celebrates this band’s sense of community as well as their bond as a band. Such intelligence permeates Los Lobos’ self-production, so it’s no accident guitarist Cesar Rosas’ “Yo Canto” appears immediately after that cut as a nod to their ethnic and musical roots; or that the vocal harmonizing of guest Susan Tedeschi adds poignancy to the title track.

Mastering their native forms imprinted an intuitive sense of authenticity on Los Lobos. Thus, they’re able to reach out with their music literally and metaphorically. As world-weary as David Hidalgo sounds on the title song, the brightness at the corners of the melody, accentuated by Steve Berlin’s rising organ lines, ultimately lifts him above his morose state to make this declaration: “it’s only love I bring.” The guitarist/singer/songwriter then reaffirms his statement with a electric blues guitar solo by which he reinforces the band’s essential air of positivism. In fact, there’s a much greater sense of Lobos building upon the blues on Tin Can Trust than any of their recent projects. “Do The Murray” proceeds from an angular riff straight from Britain in the late Sixties before Hidalgo and Rosas trade shots. Similarly biting guitar lines snake around the background of “All My Bridges Burning.” before coming to the fore beyond the multiple acoustic instruments

After the party atmosphere of  “Mujer Ingrata” fades away, the ominous air that pervades much of this album returns in the form of “27 Spanishes”. Without any overtly topical songs within these eleven tracks, Los Lobos manage to capture the precarious tenor of our times and their cover of the Grateful Dead’s “West LA Fadeway” is particularly resonant in that regard. Like the iconic San Francisco institution, his band from East LA offers respite that’s as self-renewing as their own creativity and the music that arises from it.

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