Los Lobos: Tin Can Trust

A solid case could be made for Los Lobos as the best American rock band of the past 30 years, if only because its members have proved themselves capable of mastering multiple subgenres of roots music—from hippie jams to Tex-Mex to experimental art-folk—all while exploring what it means to live in this country. The biggest knock against Los Lobos is that it has put out consistently good albums without producing many classic songs—which is the case yet again with the latest, Tin Can Trust. Arriving four years after the focused, thematically rich The Town And The City, Tin Can Trust is more of a straight-ahead rock record, relaxed in approach and spirited in performance. It’s easy to listen to and easy to like, especially when Los Lobos rips into a fiery bar-band instrumental like “Do The Murray.” True, there’s no new “Will The Wolf Survive” or “One Time One Night” or “When The Circus Comes” here, though the offhanded disgust of the album-opener, “Burn It Down,” is striking in its combination of confidence and melancholy, and “On Main Street” has a soulful feel that belies the lyrics’ ambivalence toward the road ahead. Even when the songs on Tin Can Trust aren’t as memorable, the feel is there.