Elegancia Tropical

A decade ago, Colombia’s Bomba Estéreo were at the crest of the exciting digital cumbia insurgency, universally admired throughout a scene that reached from Mexico to Argentina and beyond. By 2012, they found themselves chafing at the confines of the sound, and a bit older to boot. Their first album in four years was, if not elegant (as the title might imply), certainly more mature, wide-ranging, spacious as needed and melodically rich. Never too respectable, thankfully – firecracker frontwoman Li Saumet still has bite, and guitarist Julián Salazar’s miasmic space-rock inclinations remain in the band’s orbit. Special bonus: “Mozo”, a sinister cumbia/kuduro clash with Portugal’s Buraka Som Sistema.