Dos Santos // Es Amor

Dos Santos have always treated tradition as something alive rather than fixed, and Es Amor may be the clearest expression yet of an idea the Chicago quintet articulated around City of Mirrors: “tradition is the balance between maintenance and innovation.” That tension runs through these ten tightly wound tracks, where cumbia, son jarocho, Afro-Cuban percussion, psychedelic rock, and contemporary jazz are not simply combined so much as questioned, preserved, and reshaped in real time. Produced by Beto Martínez, of Grupo Fantasma and Money Chicha fame, the album feels leaner and more performance-driven than its predecessor, capturing the raw chemistry Dos Santos bring to the stage. Daniel Villarreal’s drums and Peter “Maestro” Vale’s percussion supply a restless pulse beneath Jaime Garza’s bass and jarana, Nathan Karagianis’ guitars, and Alex E. Chávez’s keyboards and vocals. Songs like “Money Gun” and “Aldama” move with a wiry physicality, while the title track provides the album’s emotional center. “Es Amor” reworks “El Amor,” a song written decades earlier by Chávez’s father, turning family memory into a living piece of the band’s own language. That act of transmission becomes the record’s clearest expression of what Dos Santos do so well. They acknowledge the weight of the traditions they inhabit without pretending their understanding is complete, leaving room for curiosity, friction, and discovery. Even the album’s insistence on love works this way, not as nostalgia or easy sentiment, but as an act of resistance rooted in care, memory, and the stubborn assertion of humanity against imposed cruelty.