While touring behind their album
Foam, the members of
Divino Niño began to explore the danceable nature of their songs, changing the tempos in order to get the crowd moving. Once back home, they combined this instinct with a newfound love for modern Latin pop, especially the more progressive reggaeton artists. The band had always integrated their Latin roots into their dreamy indie pop but now decided to jump headfirst into modern Latin pop sounds.
Last Spa on Earth incorporates sonic elements from genres ranging from reggaeton, cumbia, trap, champeta, and urbano; the Auto-Tuned singing and rapping is almost all in Spanish, and almost the only thing left intact from previous records is the band's easygoing charm (and a few guitars mixed in among the synths and programmed beats). It's a dreamlike, almost woozy, take on modern Latin pop that has the feel of something one might hear booming out of a car radio at a stoplight, but it's also located firmly left of center. While songs like the slow-motion disco groover "XO" or the slinky "Especial" have all the bright, shiny surfaces of a
Bad Bunny track,
Divino Niño's approach is more low-key and sneaky. Instead of an attempt to storm the charts, it's more of an effort to wrest the narrative away from that mass-appeal path in favor of something smaller and more approachable.
Last Spa definitely succeeds on that level; the album serves as a good entry-level text for curious indie pop fans looking for a crash course in Latin pop. There are a fair number of tracks that do a kind of bait and switch, starting off with some loping '80s-influenced jangle, then dropping into a trap breakdown ("Drive"), shifting from a lush piano ballad into a banging house coda ("I Am Nobody"), or splicing a few bars of hardcore rapping into the otherwise sun-dappled and lovely midtempo ballad "Mona." It's all done with a kind of head-spinning nimbleness and verve that speaks to the fun the group must have had while piecing the album together.
Last Spa on Earth is an amusing and frolicsome departure that promises fans who stick with the band a jumping-off place to discover the joys of Latin pop of all stripes. Likewise, for fans of that style who want something a little off the beaten track,
Divino Niño's take might be just the breath of fresh air they are looking for. ~ Tim Sendra