From adolescent pranksters with little musical ability to forty-somethings with a little extra weight around the waist,
Los Auténticos Decadentes have aged miraculously well for a party band. They have indeed turned making fun into a serious profession, releasing albums that keep on getting better, growing more accomplished each time, and losing none of their blessed merrymaking in the process. Even if they may be past their peak in popularity in their native Argentina (but enjoying considerable success in Mexico),
Irrompibles is probably as good an album as they have ever done -- if anything for the total absence of the filler that tended to clutter earlier records. It also sounds a little different than any other
Decadentes album, for two key reasons. The first is the diminishing returns by main songwriter Jorge Serrano (apparently he is saving his best stuff for his recently launched solo career), who is usually accountable for roughly half a
Decadentes album, but only contributes two songs here. Perhaps to compensate for Serrano's distinctive compositional and vocal input,
Irrompibles has an unprecedented high number of guest vocalists (and sometimes composers), responsible for some of the album's finest moments. These guests range from the über hip
Babasónicos to king of the cuarteto Carlitos "La Mona" Jiménez, from rocker Joaquín Levinton to reggae man Dread Mar-I -- even tango legend
Alberto Castillo gets a brief cameo. Other than that, this is a bona fide
Auténticos Decadentes record, from the faux spaghetti Western intro of the raucous "Los Machos" (a less inspired rewrite of one of their greatest hits, "Los Piratas") to the circus farewell of "Otra Vez a Viajar." It also features at least two likely classics-to-be, both perfect match collaborations: the self-explanatory-titled "Cultura Disco" with
Emmanuel Horvilleur, a paean to mirror balls everywhere, and the disco-meets-dub "Tribus Urbanas" with Fidel Nadal, a hilarious and at the same time refreshingly unprejudiced embrace of all urban tribes and their music of choice -- as admittedly ridiculous as some of these may be. The song also serves as a perfect embodiment of
the Decadentes' philosophy in music, where rock, disco, pop, cumbia, ranchera, and reggae can all get along happily together, as they do in the seamless
Irrompibles. May the party never die. ~ Mariano Prunes