Spin (11/03, p.117) - "...Their fifth album rocks righteously, goes dreamily digital, and closes with a majestic ballad. Like peak-era Radiohead, with a sense of humor..." - Grade: A
Entertainment Weekly (8/15/03, p.74) - "...They've carved out a beguiling niche where their Beatle-ish melodicism and occasional full-bore assault get leavened by new-wave mirth..." - Rating: B+
CMJ (7/21/03, p.6) - "...The four members of this band have put the best of their talents together to record their biggest and most accessible collection of cancions to date..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.106) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[I]t's immediately accessible and wears its discontent in a convincing snarl."
Cafe Tacuba: Emmanuel Del Real (vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards, programming); Elfego Buendia (vocals); Joselo Rangel (electric guitar, background vocals); Quique Rangel (bass, background vocals).
Additional personnel: Alejandro Flores (acoustic guitar, violin); Victor Indrizzo (drums).
Producers include: Gusatvo Santaolalla, Dave Fridmann, Cafe Tacuba, Anibal Kerpel, Andrew Weiss.
Recorded at Capitol Studios, Los Angeles, California; Tarbox Road, Cassadaga, New York and El Ensayo, Naucalpan, Mexico.
CUATRO CAMINOS won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album.
Mexican rockers Cafe Tacuba have been one of the leading lights of the "Rock en Espanol" movement since their self-titled 1992 debut, and they've gotten progressively more adventurous with each release. Topping the lofty bar they'd set for themselves, CUATRO CAMINOS is a dizzyingly diverse, inventive offering that's gotten them tagged as the Mexican Radiohead. While CT doesn't sound that much like everyone's favorite Britpop deconstructionists, they achieve a similar level of creativity. At no time on CUATROS CAMINOS does one get the feeling of having encountered this style or this particular amalgam of sounds before. Whizzing synthesizers, percolating acoustic and electronic rhythm tracks, ethereal background vocals, atmospheric piano, thick waves of plangent guitar, and propulsive basslines are stitched together in thrillingly fresh-sounding combinations. The whole thing is made to cohere via a strong sense of song structure and sonic architecture. Where the whole thing might collapse in a heap in the hands of a less skilled group, CUATROS CAMINOS soars as a collection of fully formed works by a group whose next move no one would dare predict.