La Migra

Opening track ‘Aguanileo’ is a marvellous thing: seven minutes of swirling guitars and horns, electronic trills and crashing sound effects sneaking past your periphery, an unrepentant one-note bass line prodding you to listen, Afro-Cuban voices emerging in unison from the distortion. Senses are skewed; you're never quite sure what may happen next. Unfortunately, it's the best track on La Migra, the latest release from an eight-strong group of Latin émigrés (mainly Cubans) and locals based in Ontario, Canada. After that, all the normal failings of Latin jazz-rock fusion groups come to the fore: crunchy guitars and tinny percussion spoiling the Afrobeat bluster of ‘Congo’; unnecessary synth belches punctuating each line on ‘Se Me Complica’; a frustratingly omnipresent dub bass line haunting ‘Barasu-Ayo Pt2’. Battle of Santiago can never quite decide whether they are a jazz-rock band with Latin percussion and vocals, or a Latin group with extra instrumentation. The fact that they sound like they are flitting between the two speaks volumes about the unease in their mixing of styles. Strangely, it's left to curious experimental tracks like the percussive Afro-Cuban curios ‘Barasu-Ayo Pt 1’ and ‘Los Viajes del Bata’, and the delightful backwards-synth and roving sax of ‘Rumba Libre’ to offer some salvage from the chaos.