When Los Lonely Boys, a trio of very musical brothers, exploded out of the small city of San Angelo, Texas, in 2004 with the hit single “Heaven” from their eponymous debut album, many wondered, “What can they do for an encore?”After all, rare is the band that hits the jackpot first time out: “Heaven” rocketed to Number One on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, made the Top 20 on the pop charts and won a Grammy; the album sold more than 2 million copies. Their latest studio album—their fourth, not counting a Christmas set and their fine 2009 covers EP, 1969 (on which they covered Santana, The Beatles, The Doors, Tony Joe White and Buddy Holly)—is called Rockpango, and it’s a solid collection of 11 tunes that really shows their maturity as a band.
There’s a good dose of heavy rock riffs, with Henry Garza getting a chance to flash his Hendrix/Stevie Ray side on the exciting title cut, while dipping into more of a Clapton bag on the bluesy “Porn Star.” There’s funky clavinet on a couple of tracks, a wonderfully breezy acoustic romp called “Fly Away,” sumptuous ballads accompanied by strings, a strange but cool spoken-sung number called “16 Monkeys” and catchy riffs throughout that recall everyone from The Beatles to Cream, while still hewing to the Los Lonely Boys sound. - mixonline.com