Released this year, Russ Hewitt’s Latin American influenced album, Alma Vieja, or “old soul” in English, made my old soul want to crumble- and not in a good way.

As much as I appreciate culturally influenced works, this anything but bearable album that mixes the sounds of Rhumba with Flamenco and Jazz is not even close to becoming a hit. There are several things I would rather listen to: elevator music, my mother ranting about laundry to do, and a monkey giving birth.

The album is just too clean, too processed. It has an over produced, over edited quality that I cannot find any value in. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the artist was trying to do.

The songs do not speak to me like I think an album should. The songs are very individualistic and I cannot find any theme intertwined in the songs other than the fact that the music is Latin influenced.