Cafe Tacuba, a bicultural dynamo

Cafe Tacuba, the revered and vaguely mysterious alt-Latino band, has made just four full-length albums since it was founded 13 years ago by design students in Mexico City. It now seems astounding that this quirky quartet could compress such a rich and varied body of work into a handful of releases.

The band’s frequently raucous -- and sometimes riveting -- concert Friday at the Hollywood Palladium provided a sampler of its respected repertoire, plus several new songs. After a two-year hiatus from touring, this dynamic performance served as reminder of the power of music that helped redefine pop culture in Latin America.

Cafe Tacuba’s original lineup is still intact -- Emmanuel del Real, keyboards and programming; Joselo Rangel, guitar; his brother Enrique Rangel, bass; and Ruben Albarran, the band’s hyperkinetic lead singer who changes his name with every album.

Albarran, a.k.a. Anonimo and Cosme, emerged Friday as Gallo Gasss, wearing a black ski mask with a rooster’s comb dangling ridiculously on top of his head. He’s a sprightly spark-plug of a showman, hopping and twirling with abandon like a punked-out Aztec dancer on spring-loaded sneakers. It’s a shame the subtleties of his vocals -- which range from a mocking whine to a clean falsetto and a tender croon -- were often lost in a muddy mix.

The Gallo Gasss character looks like an incongruous cross between a Zapatista rebel and one of those masked Mexican wrestlers. As a blend of comic books and social causes, he was a perfect centerpiece for a band known for fusing seemingly unrelated cultural forces. Cafe Tacuba’s trademark ability to shift styles instantaneously, often within the same song, was evident during its two-hour show, which veered from new wave to nostalgia, from punk to polkas. The most stirring moments came when exploring that explosive nexus where La Raza meets rock ‘n’ roll, assisted on several stirring songs by regular sidekick Alejandro Flores and his vibrant violin evoking Veracruz.

The crowd also breezed biculturally from mosh-pit frenzy to old-fashioned folklorico steps. Many knew every word of the group’s surreal, sassy and sentimental Spanish lyrics. That’s not easy on a classic like “Chilanga Banda,” with its hypnotic stream of street slang delivered in the sing-song tone of Mexico City dwellers.

Chilango, or chilanga, means someone or something from the Mexican capital. That included most of the audience Friday, judging from the response when Gallo Gasss mentioned that “Chilangos are everywhere.”

Cafe Tacuba makes no attempt to explain itself. That can be a frustrating trait in a band with such high expectations. Three years ago, when Warner Bros. decided to push the band in the U.S., Cafe Tacuba dashed hopes for an alt-Latino breakthrough by delivering an album of weird, experimental instrumentals titled by numbers, not names. It eventually averted a debacle by producing a brilliant second CD with actual songs, resulting in 1999’s acclaimed double album, “Reves/Yosoy.” This year, instead of making a strong comeback statement on its new label, MCA, the group released an enigmatic EP covering four songs by the obscure and disbanded Chilean band Los Tres. A full album of new material is due on MCA in the spring, but making the short-form album seems like another careless or ill-calculated career choice.

Band members say they really don’t care about anything but making music they like. Yet Friday’s far-from-capacity turnout shows they haven’t gained many new followers recently.

Instead of singing for the choir, Cafe Tacuba should be seeking converts outside the Church of Spanish Rock. The band certainly deserves all the listeners it can bring to the fold.