Corrientes - Underlying Truth CD

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In a perfect world someone like me would have enough time to review complete CD's but, unfortunately, this is not a perfect world even though this Corrientes CD is some 10 tracks long. That is about 9 tracks too many so I am concentrating on track 1, Thinking Back. Or at least, that was the plan and like most plans came unstuck within the first couple of plays. If Thinking Back is an indication of what this CD has to offer it would be a criminal waste not to cast my ears over the entire thing. Corrientes is both a singer/songwriter and a live gigging band based in NYC, Ivette Corrientes being the lady in question but I have no clue what the band consists of. Thinking Back is a great introduction to this Latin artist; smooth, sophisticated and intensely rhythmic - exactly what I like most.

On this one CD you have a myriad influences from Pop through Rock, Reggae and Electronica and even a couple of Ethnic tracks so bound ro be something for everyone, especially if you like slick, well executed songs. This Old Town and You Know are the next couple of tracks and fall squarely into Rock, although smoother than I particularly care for, especially You Know which is a bit too mushy for my own taste. El genio certainly picks the CD right up again, it being a great blend of latin/caribbean rhythms, that trickles into your ears like molten sugar. Mind you, I am a sucker for music of this type so its no surprise that it rapidly became one of my favourites. Layers is the next track up and is a fairly standard (ie less than hard) reggae pop affair, but like El genio has some wonderful vocal moments dotted throughout the track.

Little Bits Of Energy is a pop track that starts off sounding a bit tame - at least to my ears. Continued plays didn't help to dispel the feeling that this is probably one of the weakest tracks on this excellent CD, but I am sure I will many who would argue differently. As Close As You Think is a slice of dreamy DnB (if you can imagine that) and IMHO is one of the better tracks from this set; it could easily be lifted from the CD and played as a single and get radio play - at least in certain markets. It also sets off Ivette's distinctive vocal more than any other track on the CD. La orilla del mar is, as you can imagine, another sultry slab of latina rhythms and definitely shows that - whatever else goes on - Corrientes are MUCH more relaxed when playing this kind of material - it has a blinding chorus too. A Child In Your Eyes is much like Little Bits Of Energy and even Underlying Truth (a rock track) definitely suffers somewhat when contrasted again the Latin tracks. Again though, I am incredibly biased towards that kind of music anyway. After spending some time with this CD, I see no reason why this band shouldn't be proud of what they have achieved. After all, can't please all the people all the time, can you?

Excellent introduction to this Latin band. Highly Recommended (especially the Spanish language tracks!)