Kiko

How Will the Wolf Survive? Los Lobos's ability to wade through disparate musical styles isn't the stuff of Elvis and the Beatles, but Los Lobos did it on their debut album. And, unlike much of the material Los Lobos cut their teeth on as a Los Angeles Top 40 cover band, there is nothing lowest-common-denom...	By the Light of the Moon Los Lobos's second full-length album was a transitional affair for East L.A.'s favorite musical sons. On their debut EP, ...And a Time to Dance, and especially on How Will the Wolf Survive?, Hidalgo, Rosas, and crew proved themselves to be Mexican American roots rockers nonpareil...	La Pistola y El Corazon	Colossal Head If Kiko was Los Lobos' unanticipated definitive statement, as in "You've got to hear this!" Colossal Head is its less focused addendum. It says: "Oh, yeah, and furthermore. The title track, a multi-textured grinder with a Middle Eastern string arrangement mixed in with baritone s...	The Neighborhood The Neighborhood continues Los Lobos' gift for melding American musics--R&B, conjunto, C&W, rock, and the rest--into a sound that's entirely its own. The longing swing of "Emily" is kick-started by driving fiddle, the delicate "Little John of God" features the Arkansas drawl of L...
The Town and the City After variously celebrating their 30th anniversary with the star-studded The Ride, documenting their bracing live shows on Live at the Fillmore and doing a little intimate musical retrenchment on the self-released Acoustic En Vivo, Los Lobos returned to the studio with creative ...	Good Morning Aztlán [Limited Edition] After 25 years together as a band, you'd expect Los Lobos to be spent creatively. Not so, though this East L.A. institution has settled into a perhaps too-comfortable groove with its past couple of albums. No longer the studio experimentalists of Kiko (still the group's best albu...	This Time The gents in Los Lobos refuse to go gentle into the good night. This Time (like the 1999 Los Lobos spin-off projects Houndog and the Latin Playboys) is rife with an adventurous spirit that belies the lengthy recording history these guys have behind them. No one can accuse Los Lob...	Del Este de Los Angeles (Just Another Band from East L.A.) Long before they became American rock legends and Grammy favorites, Los Lobos (or rather Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles--the Wolves of East Los Angeles--as they were then known) turned a faithful musical tutelage by their parents' Mexican folk music records into a steady strea...	The Ride After hitting a creative peak in the early '90s, Los Lobos settled into a decade-long groove that was perhaps a little too comfortable. The band's twelfth studio CD, The Ride, tries to shake things up a bit, and mostly succeeds by pairing the group with a string of collaborators ...

One of the best, from one of the very best
Los Lobos are a national treasure. No one has ever combined so many strains of American music so successfully. "Kiko" expanded the band's reach into new areas, as they tried out sampled percussion and vintage wind sounds. Producer Mitchell Froom pointed the way for them, but no matter how far they got from their classic guitar-based style, upon listening, the imprint of Los Lobos is still unmistakable -- the voices and guitars, and the lyrics that describe or allude to the Chicano experience in the U.S. This album may be something of an excursion from Los Lobos' expected sound, but those who know the band's music also know that almost any sound they decide to try will be melded into what they already posess. Los Lobos stand as giants above the others, mostly midgets, of American popular music.

Wonderful. Entertaining. A favorite of my collection.
This is such a great album. Great rhythms, message and production. Buy it, you'll like it.

Perfume of the South-West
Here is the perfume and visuals of the South-west.'Kiko' is to Los Lobos what the Brown album was for The Band. And it has a generosity, a scale, a warmth of compable magnitude, doing for their region what the aforementioned Band disc did for the East coast. The music is at once old and progressive. It's the perfect soundtrack to Sayles,'Lone Star' film,'Three Burials'(though Doug Sham's there and no argument with that), or even,'Big Lebowski'. The side project, Latin Playboys, is for me their only other set of similar impact. But, to continue the Band affinities, it's like 'Stagefright' after those 60s works of genius.

BUY THIS ONE!
Its hard to say that any album could be the quintessential Los Lobos Album. They have so many different aspects and nuances, it would be impossible to capture them in one album. Kiko comes pretty close to capturing the Lobos' essence though. Songs like Dream In Blue, Angels With Dirty Faces, & Peace showcase the basic Los Lobos "East LA Roots Rock" sound. One of my favorites, Saint Behind The Glass, is a nod to traditional Mexican Music while still maintaining approachability to the non-Latino listener. Rio de Tenampa showcases the band's ability to seamlessly meld Mexican and Country sounds together in one unique package. Every song on here is written and played with great depth and feeling, but none more than the melancholy When The Circus Comes, which I find so emotionally stirring. While this CD has a certain Hispanic flavor, it is a great introductory album to a band that appeals to lovers of all different genres of music including, Latin, Country, Blues, Rock and more!

Los Lobos' Sgt. Peppers
I've got a half dozen of these guys' albums, most of which are great in their own right, but this is hands down, their absolute best. It got all kinds of accolades when it came out back in 1992. Sometimes, critics go goo-goo-ga-ga over some record, and later you wonder why. That's not the case here. This album has stood the test of time. They're doing this album live in its entirety in a few cities right now, but there's a chance they'll expand the tour. Not to be missed.