Reflexión

Following her collection of reggae sounds in 2019, the Latina powerhouse has gone for a more catholic approach with her fifth studio album. The dynamic single, ‘Espejo’, kicks things off with one of her trademark full-on rockers, and there are traces throughout Relexión of other genres reflecting her various domiciles (in Spain, Lebanon, Ecuador and currently New York): Latin, Middle Eastern, reggae and funk.

She writes tight, concise songs, sings them distinctively in the voice of a nicotine-lite Marianne Faithfull, and plays a razor-sharp guitar throughout, with lots of echo, fuzz, feedback and sustain. Another rocker, ‘Home’, sung this time in English, is a paean to New York, ‘the city that I call home.’ Other, mainly Spanish, songs are calls for resilience, human rights and concern for the planet. At her best, on numbers like ‘Espejo’, the salsified ‘La Voz’ and ‘Por Ti’, with its irresistibly scratchy funk-guitar and horn motifs courtesy of the Chronic Horns, the energy she generates can be positively breathtaking. Even if, when off-the-boil, certain songs sound like they might have failed to make the cut for Santana’s Supernatural, Cecilia Villar Eljuri is not an artist to be ignored. Excuse me while I strap on the air-guitar.