It all starts right in your face. "La Venganza de los Pelados" ("The Revenge of the Underdogs") is an edgy, electric cumbia/huapango featuring Café Tacuba's Rubén Albarrán (owner of the best falsetto in Latin alternative), the first of three Latin songs on the album. But Los Lobos have always been, first and foremost, a superb rock band. Dave Hidalgo has never sung or played better, and Cesar Rosas is at his fiercest on the bluesy "Charmed." Dave Alvin (singer for the Blasters, a band Los Lobos used to open for back in the 1970s) chills you to the bone on "Somewhere in Time," a dark, countryish hymn Johnny Cash would be proud of. -- Enrique Lopetegui