The Puerto Rican star’s third studio album is a sensory feast. Consistently operating at the cutting edge of Latin music, Álvaro Díaz pushes forward with every new project. Drawing apparent inspiration from the culinary realm, his third studio album, OMAKASE, is a sensory feast, with the Puerto Rican star as a masterful itamae guiding listeners through each course. Wasting little time in setting expectations, he reaches for the dance floor almost immediately with the erotically charged “MDF” and keeps the tempo feverishly high on the delightfully devilish “SELEDA”. From perreo permutations like “BABYRECORDS” to the rock subversion of “OVELNAIT”, the album challenges as much as it excites. Though various rhythms drive the project, relatively ambient tracks like “INAROW62.” and “SPACEXXX” provide opportunities to thoughtfully zone out. His hip-hop origins come to the fore on the Clipse-nodding “BIMEL”, maintaining a melodic sleekness more commonly found in R&B. This ability to merge and stack his skills within each track makes for a surprise-laden yet profoundly cohesive listen, with highlights like the maximalist “NO PODEMOS SER AMIGOS” and the abstractly tropical “PIENSO EN TI” exemplifying how far he’s come as an artist. As a more-than-capable collaborator, Díaz allows others in to further augment his menu of ideas. With Latin hitmaker Tainy, he slows reggaetón down to a pulsating crawl on “PERDISTE EL EMMY”, flipping to something more club-oriented yet still left-of-centre on the LATIN MAFIA team-up “MALASNOTICIAS”. On the vocal front, fellow boricua Rubí coos between the loose physical-fitness metaphors on “TREINEL.” while Guatemalan singer Jesse Baez adds anxious urgency to R&B hybrid “EN LA MISMA CIUDAD”.