Down to Earth

Reggaeton began life as an omnivorous assimilator of a welter of popular genres, uniting the blazing tempos of Dancehall and belligerent imagery of hardcore hip-hop under the banner of a distinctively Latin rhythmic sensibility. As Alexis y Fido become more successful they and their talented team of producers continue to blur the lines separating styles of popular music, borrowing elements of slick vocoder-drenched R&B à la T Pain and Akon, the futuristic loverman narratives of artists like The-Dream, and even indefinable elements of some of today’s more electronically oriented indie-pop, incorporating them all into Down to Earth, the duo’s bewilderingly eclectic but consistently engaging third full-length. Master Chris and Hyde provide much of the album’s production displaying their protean talents as mimics, at one moment approximating the icy minimalism of recent Kanye West, at another trying to capture the percussive brutality of Lil’ Jon. This ceaseless shape shifting might be frustrating were it not for the undeniable charisma of Alexis y Fido, who give life, and a concrete identity, to this otherwise schizophrenic release.