Miedo Escenico

Album Review

Following two decades of international stardom as the lead singer of mainstream Latin rock band La Ley, Beto Cuevas forges ahead with a cutting-edge electro-rock style on Miedo Escénico, his solo album debut. Released three years after the breakup of La Ley, Miedo Escénico is a bold and deliberate effort by Cuevas to break new ground stylistically and refashion himself as cutting edge rather than middle of the road. Though La Ley was always a mainstream rock band through and through, the band did have an alternative streak and a tendency to go for edgy productions, especially on later albums such as Vértigo (1998), Uno (2000), and Libertad (2003). Vértigo in particular was La Ley's most daring effort to add industrial flourishes to their otherwise mainstream rock style, and while the effort didn't work out so well, triggering a backlash among fans at the time, the band struck a better balance between electronica and rock on Uno and Libertad, where the industrial flourishes were toned down and limited to background ambience. However, now that he's free of the band and the expectations that came along with being one of the biggest Latin rock bands in the world, Cuevas indulges his creative side on Miedo Escénico, on which he collaborated at length with not one but two producers: Steve Tushar, who was once a member of the trailblazing industrial metal band Fear Factory, and Aureo Baqueiro, one of the most reliable hitmakers in Latin pop and also one of the most fashionable circa 2008. While Tushar supplies the cutting-edge electro-rock musical touch and Baqueiro the hitmaking craftsmanship, Cuevas follows through with a batch of thoughtfully written songs that showcase his strengths as a vocalist and lyricist. Highlights include the impeccably produced singles "Vuelvo" and "Háblame," which mark the album's two extremes. "Vuelvo" is a pulsing electro-rocker with an explosive chorus, razor-sharp riffs, and an energetic tempo. In contrast, "Háblame" is a passionate ballad that begins plainly with gentle acoustic guitar and a hushed opening verse before unfolding skyward into a singalong chorus backed by a thick wall of production.