Maldita Vecindad (full name: La Maldita Vecindad y los Hijos del Quinto Patio) were one of the most exciting bands to come out of Mexico in the late ’80s. As part of the rock en español movement, they joined peers like Caifanes, Café Tacvba and Maná in making genuinely pathbreaking Mexican rock — and selling a surprising number of records in the process. El Circo, their second album, was released in 1991; it’s a convulsive, ultra-high-energy mix of ska, funk, rock, and traditional Mexican music that begins with a sprinting tribute to 1940s pachucos and ends with a ska-punk cover of Juan Gabriel’s “Querida.” Songs like “Un Gran Circo,” “Un Poco de Sangre,” “Toño” and “Crudelia” have a funky art-rock feel (with splashes of trumpet and saxophone) that slot comfortably alongside English-language genre-blurring bands of the era like Fishbone and Faith No More.