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Los Lobos
THE RIDE
(Hollywood/Mammoth)
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It’s great when bands experiment, especially when they’re 30-year veterans like Los Lobos. But experiments don’t always work, and The Ride, despite its sweeping ambition and an exceptional guest list that includes Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Dave Alvin, Bobby Womack, Richard Thompson, and Mavis Staples, is uneven. From another group, it might sound like a full-grown identity crisis, as it rockets among pop songs, cliché’d blues, Mexican-flavored rock, singer-songwriter fare, and funky soul. This last yields the disc’s best track, a medley of "Wicked Rain," from Los Lobos’ 1992 Kiko (Slash), and Womack’s own "Across 110th Street" pumped by the R&B legend’s soulful vocal turn. Costello is in his boring crooner mode for a perplexing redo of "Matter of Time," which Los Lobos nailed on 1984’s How Will the Wolf Survive? (Slash), and Waits is a noisy, wailing cipher in the mix on "Kitate," a disposable sound collage. The band sound most like themselves on "La Vengaza de Los Pelados," with great guitar tones and a rhythmic attack, courtesy of the members of Café Tacuba, to match that of the Buena Vista Social Club. Thompson’s needlepoint six-string and distinct, clipped vocal phrasing pack "Wreck of the Carlos Rey" with terse melodrama, and Staples’s warm honey-and-grits church singing gives the spiritual "Someday" real wings. But this Ride crashes more often than it flies, even if Los Lobos deserve credit for taking some leaps. (Los Lobos play this Friday, June 18, at the Paradise, 967 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston; call 617-562-8800.)
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