Review: Los Lobos bring 'Kiko' to the Keswick

In a career creeping up on four decades, the Los Angeles quintet Los Lobos has left many high-water marks. But should the need arise to explain the group's greatness to future generations, there's no question which of its 15 albums would end up in the time capsule.

Kiko, whose 20th anniversary the group marked by playing the complete album at the Keswick Theatre on Sunday night, was Los Lobos' Achtung Baby, an artistic breakthrough that both encapsulated and obliterated everything that had come before. By playing the album's 16 songs, from "Dream in Blue" through "Rio de Tenampa" in order, the band allowed the Keswick audience to relive the shock of their inaugural play-through, the dawning realization that the band's trademark mixture of traditional North American styles - Mexican folk songs, 1950s rock-and-roll, a subtle hint of Angeleno punk, more felt than heard - had fused into a new panoply of sounds, unique and untraceable.

With its wobbly Chamberlin keyboards evoking some chimerical hybrid of a Count Basie fox-trot and a funeral march for a cartoon skeleton, "Kiko and the Lavender Moon" arrived like a bolt from the heavens, a sharp left turn in an evening full of them.

Anchored by new drummer Enrique Gonzales, the latest in a Spinal Tap-esque string, and the fat bass tones of Conrad Lozano, the band's front line - David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, and Louie Pérez on guitars, with Philadelphia-born Steve Berlin on baritone sax - took their time with Kiko's 16 tracks, broadening its already varied palette with lengthy six-string workouts.

Rosas, in his trademark shades, traded solos with Hidalgo on the roadhouse rocker "That Train Don't Stop Here," and Hidalgo deepened the pensive stomp of "Just a Man" with an elaborate blues intro.

The frequent jam sessions diluted some of Kiko's magic, some of which comes from its ability to breeze through a catalog of styles in a relatively short time span. But consecutive standing ovations for the show's last three songs were testament to the crowd's generous appetite for guitar solos, finally sated with an appropriately extended cover of the Grateful Dead's "Bertha."

Kiko may be one for the time capsule, but above ground, Los Lobos were less interested in turning back the clock than moving forward at their own unhurried pace.