It took nearly four years for Mexico City's Centavrvs to follow up Sombras de Oro, their 2014 Latin Grammy-nominated debut. In the aftermath, the band -- who seemingly came out of nowhere to begin with -- toured relentlessly. With the nomination came numerous invitations to play music festivals across the United States and Mexico, and their travels lasted over two years. They wrote -- and sometimes recorded -- on the road. In 2017, they issued three singles: "El Punto Final," "Quebrar Las Ventanas," and "Volar Muy Alto," but withheld the album out of respect for Mexico, then reeling from two major earthquakes in Chiapas and in Central Mexico (the latter occurred on the 32nd anniversary of the massive quake in Mexico City in 1985 that killed 10,000).
During their travels, they encountered producer Tweety Gonzalez in New York. He'd seen Centavrvs at SXSW and wanted to work with them. Originally hired to produce a couple of cuts, he helmed the album's sessions. They also encountered master trombonist King Rey David Alejandre, a longstanding member of Willie Colon's band. Originally contracted to play on a single cut, he played on most of the record. Musically, Somos Uno is a full step beyond the sounds the band delivered on Sombras de Oro. Here, they move past their trademarked electro corridos (they literally invented the style) to embrace tropical sounds from salsa and merengue to cumbia, Afrobeat, chicha, norteño, rock en español, and many more. Check the summery Latin rock grooves in "Cataclismos," that juxtaposes club grooves, a hooky rave-up chorus, and layers of scratching and loops. The horn-driven cumbia and salsa vamps on "Debilidad" belie a sweet, driving melodic line punctuated by layered vocals and trombones, synth squiggles, and insistent, trebly guitars atop an orgy of percussion. First single "El Punto Final" is a nocturnal cumbia/Afrobeat hybrid with Alejandre's trombone as the track's guiding light. "Diablo en Llamas" is a cinematic meld of salsa and chicha, with a refrain whose limber guitars recall the high lonesome of spaghetti western country music without actually going there. "Jos de Mar" is a lithe, break-saturated exercise in electronic Mexican soul, with synth-painted backdrops and ambient sounds hovering about a shuffling back beat, and tender vocal. "Jeronimo" is an obvious choice for clubs with its loopy, hypnotic, rainbow-colored psychedelic cumbias -- of Peruvian, Colombian, and Mexican varieties -- threaded dubwise. Closer "Flor de Mayo" offers an army of charangos, flutes, handclaps, and bird sounds as it emerges from folk music to embrace sunshine-drenched neo-psych. Throughout, Centavrvs focus on invention and innovation, breaking down musical forms to their essences to re-create them in their own musical image. While their debut still stands as a great creative achievement, Somos Uno is at another level entirely. Brilliant.