Los Lobos Native Sons 2LP

TAS Rated 4/5 Music, 4/5 Sonics in the December 2021 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

Los Angeles based band Los Lobos have always been inspired by their surroundings and the place they call home. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños. With Native Sons the band set out to showcase all of these influences with their own take on the songs of Los Angeles from some of the cities greatest songwriters. Native Sons features 13-songs from well known LA artists such as Buffalo Springfield, WAR, Jackson Browne and the Beach Boys as well as deep cuts from the Jaguars, The Basters and The Premiers. The album title track is the sole original composition written by the band.

The covers album is often a risky proposition, as it suggests the artists may have run out of fresh ideas of their own, but if Los Lobos didn't write most of the songs here, they make them their own with the imagination, spirit, and commitment of their performances, not to mention their impressive chops and the incredible feel that comes from more than four decades of working together....Native Sons is a tribute that manages to be more than a set of covers - it shows what the group learned from these songs, as well as showing us where their long musical journey has taken them. It's essential listening from one of America's greatest bands.

Blending Stephen Stills' 'Bluebird' into 'For What It's Worth' proves to be a master move, as the latter song still resonates in the face of current national unrest. Leader David Hidalgo's emotional tenor captures the plaintive qualities of Jackson Browne's 'Jamaica Say You Will.' The group transforms the Premiers' garage rock staple 'Farmer John' into an uptempo, horn-swelled Tex-Mex cruise highlighting Steve Berlin's raucous sax. War's 'The World is a Ghetto' features coiling loops of electric guitar that create a backdrop of brooding claustrophobia that creates a slow-burn effect. The title song (the only original on the album) provides the record's thematic centerpiece as Los Lobos reckons with their identity in contemporary America. Native Sons closes with 'Where Lovers Go,' a 1965 classic by the Jaguars that summons warm summer nights with moody reverb guitar and a magical 'Sleepwalk'-like dimension.