Reviewers of the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music event at the Barbican in May were mostly agreed: the five performances were impressive and often beautiful, but where was the intensity and energy that we also hope for music to provide? The answer had been in a performance on the Free Stage earlier in the day by LaXula, the group led by Monte Palafox, a London-based exile from Madrid who has fashioned a unique sound and look that had several members of the audience asking, why was this group not named Best European Artists?

In X-ile has been available to buy on LaXula's website for some months, while the 'Um and Aah' departments at several record labels have um'd and aah'd about whether to put it out. It's hard to imagine what better record they could be waiting for while prevaricating about this one. In many ways, it is the album that fans of Ojos de Brujo might have hoped for, as a follow-up to their masterpiece, Bari. Where their actual follow-up was a great disappointment, this is a suite of distinct, melodic tunes, each with its own shape and character, each full of space and imagination.

The classic song on the album is 'Soberbia', a hybrid of tango and flamenco which changes gear several times without ever losing momentum or focus. Not far behind is 'La Luna' (about the menstrual cycle, we learned at the Barbican), faster and with an epic feel as voices, flutes, wah-wah guitar and that big Ocean Drum tambourine mesh in an arrangement that throws up new details every time it is played.

Due to the fact that the songs are all in Spanish, this album is going to be consigned to the world music box, but LaXula are a band for all-comers. The group would grace any festival that invited them to play, and the appeal of this exceptional album certainly isn't going to fade in the foreseeable future.

Download: 'Soberbia'; 'La Luna'; 'Rio Y Sol'