Viva los LOS!

Now here’s what I might be calling a novelty…a band Straight Outta Mexico (connotations to gangsta rap meant on purpose, biaatches), the LosLos have quite a history according to their bio. In short, these “five amigos” from the old mining city of Huasca de Ocampo slugged it out in the underground for a while before kidnapping a prize-winning champion bull to hold for ransom. The purpose was to finance a European tour with the ransom money. The catch was that the bull was in the middle of a betting scandal that revolved around the Mexican drug cartels. The Amigos were in quite a pickle with half a million greenbacks offered on their heads, 500.000 per head that is. So they understandably fled, most likely to Europe and Germany.

The musical concept is quite interesting as well. To quote the bands biography, That same night saw the birth of the concept of los LOS, as they decided to call themselves. International summer hits, presented in true metal-mex style, became their instant trademark. The back of the record was indeed confounding as it had mentions of sadistic crimes against humanity, like Macarena and The Ketchup Song as songs.

Then I thought that since I enjoyed parodies so much anyway, this might actually work. It even had an admittedly great cover choice there, Santana’s Oye Como Va. So in my mind, this screwball idea might have worked, but the choice of stylings and admittedly some of the skills of the band members leave much to be desired.

The production on the album is pretty good so I would dangerously presume that the album was not meant to be a total joke. The very first pitfall comes for this album in the form of the singing…or should I say vocals. The “singing” of Don Cabron isn’t really singing in my books, merely talking in different tones. Sometimes he whispers, sometimes goes for somewhat of an attempt at a growl, which however sounds more like the lemon wedge after all that tequila got lodged in his windpipe and he’s gargling it out to save his life. Singing I would not call it in any place. Pretty damn horrid.

The guitar riffs are the most redeeming quality on the album, as they occasionally have a good, grabbing groove to them. The mechanically sounding drums and the Marilyn Mansonesque keyboards and clanking/hissing sound effects create most of the industrial feeling, which are quite prominent cause the cooky sound effects are everywhere. Some of the good choices of covers like the aforementioned Santana tune, La Cucaracha and Ricky Martin’s Maria (yes, I must admit that I like the original to some extent) are raped with little mercy.

Overall, this is a nice concept gone terribly awry. As a fan of Latino music, this thing could have worked for me even as a consistently funny joke, instead of the “funny the first time, cringe-inducing every time after that”-part it is subdued into right now. Latino metal could work as an idea, but with much more emphasis on actual singing, melody and more rocking. After everything above, the most frustrating thing here is that a majority of the tunes are painfully slow. I don’t know if they were going for a doomy atmosphere or what, but it doesn’t work for me. Good for a check and a chuckle, and that’s pretty much it.