Los York's were one of Peru's leading rock & roll bands in the mid-'60s, but as the decade wore on their music began to take on the influence of the psychedelic revolution, and this album suggests that in 1968 the group was beginning to walk between two worlds at once. Most of
Los York's 68 sounds like the work of a solid, no-nonsense
garage band with tough, lean guitar work and a drummer who isn't afraid to hit, but vocalist
Pablo Luna sounds uncommonly passionate on even the most ordinary numbers, and when the band starts to hit a groove on something with a bit more drive, he lets forth with plaintive murmuring and frenetic wails that sound like the cries of a man possessed. And when
Luna really hits the top, the rest of the band seems eager to follow him, as evidenced by the wiry guitar freakouts on
"Mira Tu" and the fuzzy sub-
Clapton soloing on
"La Alegria de Tu Amor" (a translated version of
"Sunshine of Your Love"). Much of
Los York's 68 is better than average Latin American
garage rock, especially the emphatic cover of
the Monkees'
"Valerie" and the moody
"La Punta de Mi Leguna," but it's when these guys stumble into the musical
Twilight Zone that this really becomes something special. ~ Mark Deming
