The Gold Diggers

The 11-strong Lengaïa are a salsa juggernaut, a heavyweight Latin orchestra whose distinctive vocals and signature horn heft – three trombones and a baritone sax – has lent ballast to such international salsa artists as Ismael Rivera Jr and Ismael ‘Fania Allstars’ Miranda and made them the go-to crew for salsa dura aficionados in Montréal, their base. The Gold Diggers is the second album for this multicultural crew from countries including Colombia, Peru and French Guyana, and it's top-level stuff: 11 hard-hitting tracks featuring alternating lead vocalists and, on opener ‘La Nueva Generación’ and the bolshy ‘Salsa Dura Hasta La Muerte’, guest trombonist and salsa icon Jimmy Bosch whose swinging, percussive style stokes the collective fire.

There's no doubting the ease with which the players embrace the propulsive arrangements, or the way their musicality – at once tight and free – deftly captures salsa dura's urban grit. Every track will get dancers moving. Some, like the slow-burn ‘Una Nueva Venezuela’, richly sung by Venezuelan tenor Hermes Cardozo, might also get them thinking. Indeed, the only issue some may have with this exemplary record is the voice of Colombian singer Juan Mateo Barrera, which even for a sonero is unusually high and nasal, a singular golden whine that takes some getting used to. After which, on the likes of ‘Don Nadie’, a tune destined to pack floors from Montréal to Melbourne, it is gold all the way.