La Misa Negra

La Misa Negra almost threaten to leave cumbia behind on their epic second album. While still delivering the compulsive beats that fans expect, the Oakland septet also experiment wildly throughout La Misa Negra, throwing in the roaring horns of vintage Afrobeat, garage-rock basslines drenched in '60s fuzz, and bubbling percussion borrowed from classic salsa. But despite the band's clear old-school influences, their Latin funk remains both fiercely modern and unmistakably their own, whether they're roaring through combustible jams like "Yayabo" or getting eerie with hypnotic grooves like "Tierra."