El Baile de las Horas

Marina Abad was the powerful, husky-voiced fulcrum of flamenco, hip-hop, Latin fusioneers Ojos de Brujo until they disbanded in 2011. After a legal squabble over who owned the band’s name, some members went off to form the group Lenacay. Abad now releases her solo debut, with that final ‘h’ added to mark her rebirth.

From the off, El Baile de las Horas has more in common with soft rock by the likes of Maná and Julieta Vanegas than with any of Abad’s previous efforts. There’s a danger with mellowing out when your whole raison d’être was all about youthful passion and punky energy. The song structures, reggae-influenced rhythms, and arrangements are all well-crafted but bereft of roots or rawness. The guitar trills are neat, but generally packaged off into the middle-eights. A couple of collaborations do veer towards originality, such as ‘El Carrusel’ featuring Gotan Project’s Philippe Cohen Solal and the gutsy, rap-driven ‘Te Gustó’ performed with Orishas. The rest is Spanish-language middle- of-the-road rock. Nothing wrong with that, if it’s what you want.