Consumer Guide Album

Cuba Now [Hemisphere, 1998]
I prefer son to other salsa cousins because horn arrangements annoy me--even when they have more jam than the Cherry Poppin' Daddies'. I work on this prejudice, primarily to accommodate my clave-loving in-house adviser, who plucked this item out of the confusion of Cuban comps we've sampled during the current fad. Sucked in, as who wouldn't be, by the off-kilter montuno of NG La Banda's lead "El Tragico," she ignored the blare and voted with her hips. Grooves struggle against surface clutter throughout. Usually they win. A-