Fire Away

There are those who rate Ozomatli as the best live band in the world. To be sure, the vibe this Grammy-winning Los Angeles nine-piece creates tn-stage is something that should be experienced at least once in a lifetime. And having toured the world’s festivals and concert halls a zillion times – over in the course of their 12-year-career – Ozomatli have fine-tuned their showmanship, from thundering in through the middle of the audience to wowing president Obama at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s Annual Award Gala (yes, there is such a thing), their party credentials have never been in doubt.

Their fifth album Fire Away, however, isn’t quite the shoot ’em up affair it purports to be. Sure, there’s a wealth of influences here – everything from hip-hop and salsa to merengue and comparsa – but the result feels disjointed and more than a little contrived. Producer Tony Berg (Aimee Mann, Pete Yorn) apparently had the band start each song from jams; although the energy is as high-level as it ever was there are some songs (notably the A4-lite ‘It’s Only Paper’ and the West Coast-slick ‘Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’) that beg skipping. Others such as the smashed-up but polished ‘Gay Vatos in Love’, aren’t quite as clever as they think. Tracks to download include the raucous ‘Malagasy Shock’ and ‘Elysian Persuasion’, with its hard-edged industrial swing and all stops-out drumming. But it might have been better, perhaps, to have recorded them live: this time, Ozomatli are mostly firing blanks.