A meeting of minds…

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Andrew Casillas: Julieta’s latest album, Los Momentos, sees the Mexican alterna-rock icon successfully (and finally) integrate modern indie styles within her M.O.R. pop leanings. The album’s previous single, “Te Vi,” was a soulful, almost baroque piece of bittersweet whimsy, and one of the best songs of her career. “Vuelve,” in this alternate version with Chilean indie stars Javiera Mena and Gepe, is… not one of her best songs. Javiera and Gepe don’t exactly bring much to their performance or mix well with Julieta’s vocal, and they certainly aren’t as expressive as Cafe Tacuba’s Ruben Albarran, the vocalist on the album version. It’s also a bit naive lyrically. But it’s still an effortless piece of pop-rock, but best contained to its place on the parent album.
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Jonathan Bogart: I know this is here because the Jukebox loves Javiera Mena, but I wish it could have been Julieta’s actual current single instead; not just because it’s a better song, but because more people need to know about Julieta Venegas punto y final. Anyway, I like this slightly better than the official album version with Rubén Albarrán and Ana Tijoux. For Café Tacvba singers give me Meme over Albarrán every time — though losing Tijoux’s rap is a pity — and the final hum is a thing of beauty.
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Alfred Soto: The synth is Tango in the Night-era gorgeous, and while no voice is strong enough to dominate — even Mena’s — the trio’s cumulative power becomes clear in the outro, as the wordless vocals get downright mysterious and spooky.
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Patrick St. Michel: This is nice and all, but it really just makes me want new Javiera Mena material.
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Iain Mew: The multiple singers lend a great deal extra to “Vuelve” as it waltzes its way along eyes down, almost numbly. The whole thing is quietly charming, but it’s the moments when Gepe and Mena come in and provide little shifts towards the romantic and the tense that stick.
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Brad Shoup: On the album, Rubén Albarrán made this memorable, crone-ing it up all over her horizontal melodies. Here, everyone’s drifting in the same space, nudged along by a monotonous bass drum trigger.
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Will Adams: I usually avoid classifying music as sleep-inducing, but boy does this fit the bill. From the slurred vocals to the looping synth sweep, “Vuelve” putters around, like a dog walking in circles before it lies down.
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Sabina Tang: The synthetic 2/4 beat is mixed overbearingly high, the Proustian madeleine of one particular vision of 1990: that of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” (zenith) and Tommy Page’s “I’ll Be Your Everything” (nadir). A stroke of leftfield genius it is, too: imagine this song accompanied by acoustic guitar and “Me Voy”-style accordion, instead of chilly keyboards and those drums. It’d be just another slice of middling International Indie-pop sung by three pretty voices. 
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