*** 1/2 LOS LOBOS “The Neighborhood” <i> Slash/Warner Bros.</i> : <i> Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to five (a classic)</i> .

Los Lobos may be rooted in their neighborhood, as reflected in such uncommonly tender songs of community as “Be Still” and “The Giving Tree,” but at times on this long-awaited effort these East L.A. musicians get a good running start and jump on board the rock ‘n’ roll mystery train too.

There are the warm expressions of brotherhood, deeply felt spirituality and local concern smoothly crooned by David Hidalgo, and then, only slightly less expectedly, there is the album’s darker and emphatically bluesy side, with songs of loss and loneliness mostly sung by the grittier-sounding Cesar Rosas, who keeps wishing that his baby would come back to the neighborhood.

It’s an unusual, and unusually potent, combo, combining the soulful intensity and thematic heart of 1987’s “By the Light of the Moon” album with the hardest rocking instincts yet shown on record by L.A.’s most rewarding home-grown band. Moments--including “Little John of God”--are so outrightly sentimental that they would be sheer Capra-corn in almost any other group’s hands, but Los Lobos celebrates God and family without ever losing its edge.

At the same time, Los Lobos avoids ever letting its well-known social empathy preclude the possibility of a good old rock ‘n’ roll self -pity party. Subtle Mexican touches both traditional and Valens-esque can be picked out--and certainly no band from any other part of the country could have made this album.

But part of the beauty and greatness of Los Lobos is that “The Neighborhood” could just as easily be in East Texas or East Memphis. There’s a universality to the best Los Lobos song that speaks to the idealism and trials of every neighborhood.