Alma Latina

While not exactly a high-profile name in European world music circles, guitarist Julio Montoro has a fair old pedigree – a veteran of the Cuban scene, sometime member of the Afro-Cuban All Stars and more recently musical director of Cuban pop stars Tomezclao. On this, his solo debut, it's the latter band's polished gleam from which he takes his cue. Largely instrumental, running through slickly executed pan-Latin styles and leaning heavily towards a jazz-fusion electric guitar, it's probably far too smooth for its own good. It's the kind of music destined to earn its corn via daytime-TV royalty fees. At its best it's pleasantly generic, conjuring up holiday-programme nostalgia; at its worst it verges on package-resort purgatory. The Santana-goes-souk of ‘Noche en La Habana’ verges on the guiltily pleasurable, but those looking for more traditional, or even contemporary, Cuban sounds, will be disappointed.