by Alberto Moreno de la Fuente Clandestino, Manu Chao's first solo effort, owed its greatness to its character. It was a minimalistic, yet filled with experimentation, album. But, what's most distinctive, it was honest, direct, intimate: the personal diary of someone who had traveled a lot, not only around Latin America but through life. Unfortunately, Chao seems to lose his way a little bit in Esperanza. Apparently intended to be a continuation of what started in Clandestino, it ends being just a clone of it. The reiteration of ideas and formulas takes away from Esperanza everything that made of Clandestino a memorable piece of work. The problem with Esperanza is that Chao, instead of deepening what he proposed in his first album, seems to overfly the surface of his ideas.