Asuncion

This Vancouver, BC-based trio comes from a variety of backgrounds, with a Peruvian-Canadian lead singer (a former member of the West End Girls), a guitarist with some prog on his résumé, and a jazz/metal/dub bassist. Asunción offers the kind of stylistic blend you might imagine, though it's a bit tamer that one might expect; Silvana Kane's breathy voice seems to keep a lid on her two male colleagues' wilder tendencies, and the overarching mood here is one of contained emotional intensity. This control makes it all the more effective when those wilder tendencies bubble to the surface: the dancehall beat that underlies "Me Caí" seems to be bumping insistently up against the underside of the song's cool, layered vocal harmonies, for example, and "Paloma" is a perfect little slice of modern flamenco music, complete with handclaps and a haughty minor-key melody that will make you want to strut around the room with your chin up, stomping your heels. (On the other hand, the corrosive metal guitar that accompanies Kane's solo voice on "Más y Más" feels like a calculated musical risk that didn't quite pay off.) Kane's lyrics work better in Spanish than in English, and that's where she wisely stays most of the time. [The CD was also released with the bonus track "Libertad."]