03/21/04
'"La Argentinidad al Palo"'
Bersuit Vergarabat
(Surco/Universal Latino)

Bersuit Vergarabat was nothing more than a bizarre Latin rock curio during most of the '90s, a gleefully obscene gang of musical pranksters obsessed with bodily secretions and perversions both sexual and political. All that changed with the 2000 release of their fifth album, a surprisingly poetic, deeply layered collection that turned them into the No. 1 rock group in their native Argentina.

Fueled by this success, Bersuit built a studio and recorded a double album, of which "La Argentinidad" (due in stores March 30) is the first installment. Each of the 12 tracks e is soaked in a hyperkinetic feeling of creative euphoria. Musically, the band continues to explore an exuberant, pan-Latino fusion that can easily switch from a domestic chacarera beat to a Mexican cumbia norteña.

Bersuit has lost none of its desire to provoke and disgust, as the disco-tinged, profanity-laced opening track indicates. Hidden beneath the mock-Bee Gees harmonies and the grotesqueness of it all, however, lie moments of profound tenderness and compassion, such as the heartbreaking ballad "Al Olor del Hogar" and the electronica-informed ode to loneliness "La Soledad."

- Ernesto Lechner