I had this album playing in the shop I run and one of the customers who hails from South America asked what it was. When I told him it was two guys from Sweden, the South American flipped out - not only over how good it was, but how authentically Latin it sounded. He explained that non-Latin bands who played Latin music were often good imitators yet whose unauthenticity is fairly easy to spot to Latin peoples. Sumo threw 'em.
That said, what you've got here is an excellent Latin-based dance band, diverse in their use of house, broken beat and Afro-Cuban styles to make an album that is cohesive, but not dull.
Strangely enough, at my first listen I only took The Dance Band to be a pleasant but unmemorable album. That is, until I got to the seventh track "Rumba Con Eby," which is the spittin' audio image of Tito Puente's more Afrocentric work. And from this track on out, the record is golden. "No Cuesta Nade" continues the Afro-Cuban flavor with Thomas Eby's lead vocals (returning from the track previous) but with a hot electric piano riff, spicy brass, and rich band-responding vocals. This is followed by guest vocalist Simone Moreno's sassy "Esperanca," which incorporates some tasteful modernity with it's disco-y synths, and luckily she returns for the closing speedy jazzy number "Sudden Samba." Sandwiched between these gems is the best house track of the album, "Nini," featuring vocalist Clarisse Muvemba and sounding like it came from the same musical pen as of Salt n' Pepa/En Vogue's "Whatta man."
So in the end, The Danceband is half nice and half kick ass!
