Los Lobos
Album: Disconnected In New York
Label: Proper
Tracks: 13
Website: http://www.loslobos.org

Let's be honest, live albums are always a disappointment: sometimes massively, sometimes slightly, but a disappointment never the less. Disconnected In New York City by Los Lobos is no different.

The location of the recording was the City Winery in New York City. They are back there at the end of November when $45.00 gets you a bar stool or you can be a VIP for $20.00 more - either way I'd want more than 59 minutes of music for my dollars. And that, is the problem. Of course you can not replicate the atmosphere; the smells, the noise, the people, the numb bum after being perched on a bar stool all gig but we could at least get the full set.

The songs are drawn from the majority of their career from I Got To Let You Know from their 1984 breakthrough album How Will The Wolf Survive to the title track of 2010's Tin Can Trust. For me the standout track comes early on in the set - the Cesar Rosas penned Chuco's Cumbria but there isn't a bad cut on here - how could there be? Los Lobos have spent forty years releasing quality music.

To be fair, if you go for the deluxe package you get another four tracks on the second CD and five on DVD but, considering their 20th anniversary saw the release of a double CD of album tracks plus live and unreleased material and for the 30th was their first live DVD (just shy of two hours) this does not seem quite the celebration it deserves to be.

John 'The Jacket' Hawes