Bio Ritmo -

From the funky "blat" of synthesized 70's-fuzz tone that blasts off the first cut, "Lisandra," this ain't your father's salsa music. After a riff by the band's pianist reminded the band's leader of the Bionic Man from that era's TV history, this Virginia-based, nine-member salsa outfit found its revamped sound - "bionic Latin dance music. " While the sound, feel, and groove, overall, are solidly salsa, it's also playing around with other world-music styles.  For instance,"A La Cha," which stretches out jam-band style for seven minutes, has a Middle Eastern feel, since it's based on a suite by Egyptian icon Abdel Hatin Hafez, but toward the end, it delivers a laid-back Fela Kuti-like Afrobeat groove.  And the disc even ends on a head-scratcher of a bonus cut that sounds like a salsa-ish meeting of Captain Beefheart with Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show.

(JRL)