El Mundo No Sé Detiene / El Mundo No Se Detiene

When a group records as often as Bronco, it helps to have a built-in following — in other words, the sort of die-hard fans who keep buying your albums year after year. That is exactly the type of following that Bronco have enjoyed since the '80s, and the good news for these Latin pop-minded norteño providers is that they have acquired plenty of additional fans along the way. Bronco fans — the ones who have been on board since the '80s, as well as the ones who started listening to them in the '90s or 2000s — realize that when a new Bronco album comes along, it probably isn't going to reinvent the wheel. But they also expect the material to be dependably enjoyable. This 2009 release doesn't offer a lot of surprises, but if El Mundo No Se Detiene tends to be predictable, it is predictable in a satisfying way. Latin pop-minded norteño has been a major focus of Bronco for a long time, and they keep the pop factor strong on congenial, good-natured items like "Amanecer Contigo," "Ahora Tengo Tiempo," "Ven," and "De Que Te Quiero." Ranchera considerations come into play as well, and those ranchera considerations are especially strong on "Corazon Derrotado" and "Los Cantantes." The latter is easily the 32-minute CD's most traditional-sounding track; in fact, "Los Cantantes" finds Bronco employing mariachi horns and strings in place of their usual norteño instrumentation. But "Los Cantantes" isn't typical of El Mundo No Se Detiene on the whole. Most of the tunes are relevant to norteño, and most of them are relevant to Latin pop as well. El Mundo No Se Detiene tends to play it safer than it needs to, but the results are consistently pleasant nonetheless.