La Radiolina

With poetic melancholy, absurdist whimsy and direct shout-outs to a world no more just than it was on his last album, there's enough to carry fans until Chao's next one.

And though he sings mostly in French or Spanish, Chao's music is so sonically vivid, so gloriously evocative, translation seems almost superfluous.

The jumble of languages and sounds gives La Radiolina the feel of a noisy, colorful street bazaar where there's chaotic beauty on the surface and a certain poetic logic that runs underneath.

Now, like an intermittent short-wave transmission that suddenly catches a clear and vivid frequency, Radiolina comes into sharp focus, defining a mature sound in a mesmerizing collection of 21 new tracks.

An album packed with tuneful songs that would sound great coming out of radio speakers.

The album is not as wholly satisfying as either "Clandestino" or "Esperanza," mostly due to a handful of truncated, underdeveloped tracks toward the end, but it's still full of excellent songs and inspired collisions.

Eventually La Radiolina's more guitar-based sonics will feel inevitable too, especially once you follow the same dynamic riff through three consecutive songs up front.

There are some great songs here, including the infuriatingly catchy 'Politik Kills' along with the swirling catalogue of global problems, 'Rainin in Paradize,' and the charmingly upbeat 'Besoin de la Lune.' Then there's the Spanish-influenced 'Me Llaman Calle,' and a furious wailing French rocker about motorway panic--followed by a batch of songs that mostly sound like Manu Chao on cruise control.

The disappointment of La Radiolina is that Manu Chao’s music isn’t as arrestingly odd as it used to be. Too often his band’s ska-punk gets uncomfortably close to dull rock, and the repetition doesn’t communicate we are all singing the same song

It's a safe album, almost exactly what you'd expect from Chao. The artist continues to be the best (perhaps only) provider out there of Clash-inspired polylingual punk rock, but for a musician who built his solo reputation on quirkiness and innovation, the disc feels a bit flat.

Desgraciadamente, that's when Radiolina smashes against the wall. Fragments--stadium chants--rather than songs compound a larger issue of 'Rainin in Paradize' drenching the rest of the album.

It's an anarchic mix which is fun, exuberant and passionate.

One of the most poignant protest albums released since the U.S. invaded Iraq.

He's a one-man musical melting pot who synthesizes several continents' worth of ideas, sounds, and slogans into one swinging all-night dance party. This is internationalism at its funkiest.

La Radiolina is the most rockist album of his solo career--and also the most disappointing.

Chao’s jovial, chatty, Spanish-English-French crooning helps the ADD sensibility flow into something that feels like a happy incantation rather than a protester’s harangue against George Bush.

Though his global messages aren't particularly deep, his skilled, spirited execution sets him apart from other peacenik troubadours. [Oct 2007, p.101]

In Europe, Manu Chao shifts albums by the millions, but there is little here to make one think Britain is missing out. [Oct 2007, p.104]

La Radiolina reaches out beyond it's core audience to a universal constituency, not so much a world music record as a global-rock mission statement.

A bit jumbled together and disorienting, but overall just about as rejuvenating as anything.

He's largely a victim of his own goodwill, sounding consistently exuberant, even when the message--'Politik Kills,' say--seems to beg for more. [Nov 2007, p.98]

[In the UK], he's still something of a curiousity and likely to remain so, despite Tristeza Maleza's sweet, summery lilt and the Bob Marley-like festival anthem 'Politik Kills.'

Chao is at best when merging his Latin/salsa influences with squealing, screeching garage-rock.

La Radiolina emerges as a delicious bouillabaisse of gypsy punk, reggae and countless indigenous sounds, expertly stirred by a band of brawling pirates who plunder each port for musical spices and then add them to the cauldron.

On La Radiolina, an unmistakable molotov cocktail of fierce resistance anthems, Manu Chao continues to do what he does best.