Mateos Features New Band, Old Standards in Uneven Show

“You can’t love forever/You can’t hate forever,” sings Miguel Mateos in “Por siempre” (“Forever”), a highlight of “Pisanlov,” his first album of new material in five years.

He means it. In the mid-80s, Argentina’s Mateos was one of the very first international stars of rock en espan~ol. But the singer-guitarist also took a lot of punches from critics who (correctly) chastised him for betraying his rock roots and becoming a radio-friendly hit factory. But the new album is so good, that it is time for all to be forgiven.

As part of his biggest U.S. tour ever, Mateos came back to L.A.--where he lived from the late ‘80s to 1994--for a show Thursday at the Grand, with a new band and the raw sound he tentatively tested out in 1991 with the album “Kryptonita.” But the show was uneven because Mateos still seems more interested in pleasing the fans of his pop hits rather than serving his own tastes and talents. Thursday he presented mostly hard versions of old pop favorites (including his biggest hit, the insufferable “Obsesion”), wasting the opportunity to present the superb material of the new album.

He switched gears four times to present some new songs, and only then did he look and sound like what he can be: one of the best musical and poetic forces of rock en espan~ol. These moments proved that after years of popular success and critical lambasting, Mateos has survived as a bona fide artist. But he needs to trust his instincts, forget about pop concerns and focus on his strengths.