I'll first qualify my review by saying that I am not fluent in Spanish. Even so, I love music from all over the world, and I have quite a bit from South America, courtesy of having had an Argentinian room mate and a Brazillian girlfriend in college. So much of the music is really exciting and high energy. Now, imagine walking into the music store, and seeing "Music en Espanol" by Los Straitjackets. The first thing that might pop into your mind is, 'Wow, this is going to be some wild stuff' Well, that's what I though, until I played that album, and realized that there simply was definitely nothing wild. And this is definitely NOT a surf album. It's an album of early American type rock songs in Spanish.

That being said, I bought "Music en Espanol" Volume 1 today, on vinyl, and I'm pretty disappointed. Well, not so much disappointed as let down. It's not that it's particularly a bad album, it's not, it sounds o.k., sometimes even great. But that's the problem, I was expecting some high energy surf covers in perhaps a latin style or something, but instead I have an entire album of fairly relaxed covers of early rock music, but in Spanish. I mean, these are the guys that use those wild looking DiPinto guitars. I know that not all surf music is in your face reverb driven monsters, and some of my favorites are a bit laid back. But having heard of Los Straitjackets in this forum, I was really excited to see one of their albums in the shop. And after listening to it, well, I guess I was a little let down. I am certainly hoping that after listening to it a few more times that I will have a change of heart. That is why I am editing this post right now, the original review just sounded overly critical of a fairly decent album. But as I said, I was expecting one thing and heard another, and, well, it sort of threw me off.

I'll admit, the vocals are very nice, and are performed by the likes of Big Sandy, Cesar Rosas and Little Willie G. And the performance of Los Straitjackets is flawless. As a project integrating Mexican and American music, this album is intriguing and definitely worthwhile to listen to if this is your type of thing. I also suppose that if you're a huge fan of Los Straitjackets, this may be something interesting for your collection. After all, Metallica did receive quite a bit of critical acclaim when they performed with the San Francisco Symphony on S+M, though the inclusion of classical instruments into heavy metal music did more to accentuate the music rather than change it. Perhaps "Music en Esapanol" will have some of the same effect, to make something familiar sound new and exciting.

To make a long story short, if you'd like to hear what some early American rock music would sound like in Spanish, then this album is for you. If perhaps you were hoping for some wild surf takes on American rock, then you may be disappointed. It's not bad, and if you are a Spanish teacher, this album would be awesome as a teaching tool. But for someone wanting more surf music, this album may not be a great choice.

If you have the opportunity to listen to this album, I'd recommend giving it a shot- you may love it. It's definitely something different, and that's not always bad.

I really like Rock en Espanol. For one thing it expands on their Beatles influence (see also Eddie Angel meets the Beatles) by covering some of the same tunes (Slow Down, Dizzy Miss Lizzie, Anna) that the Fabs covered back in the day. It's not easy to balance their love for the original song, the cover by an obscure Mexican rock group, and the Beatles' musical arrangement, but they pulled it off IMHO.

That being said, I can see room for improvement. I think specifically of how LS toughened up "The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt" on Play Favorites with a vicious tremolo-laden rhythm guitar. Straitjackets managed to put together a killer arrangement of "Poison Ivy" by transforming it into a guitar-driven rhythm rocker, and rock out on "Gimme Little Sign" and "Bonie Maronie." "El Microscopico Bikini" is just plain hilarious.

I wouldn't consider it part of their essential canon, but it sure isn't awful or completely disappointing either. Still, some folks might be better off going to iTunes or YepRoc and downloading a handful of highlights rather than buying the whole thing.

On the plus side, YepRoc made available "Rock en Espanol Volume 0" which is five Spanish language tunes from their earlier catalog, which means that the "La Plaga / Que Mala" single they recorded with Big Sandy is available for download.

Swing! Twang! Shake! Twist!

I love everything these guys have done, and I think it's great that they don't pigeon hole themselves into one genre. They're one of the best session bands around. So, I appreciate that they do other cool stuff and, since they're reaching back into another era, it opens up a path to different music. In fact, after I picked up "Music en Espanol," I went back and scoped out the bands that influenced the making of that album: Cannibal & the Headhunters, Thee Midnighters, and a whole host of others (check out "East L.A. Rockin' the Barrio). Excellent stuff and once you hear it, you'll gain a whole new perspective on what Los Straitjackets were trying to do with this album.