In Brief

* * Santana, “Milagro,” Polydor. There is no more distinctive rock guitarist than Carlos Santana, and in prime passages of “Milagro” he and his churn and hurtle brilliantly down the Latin-blues-rock trail that Santana first blazed. But even some of the better material suffers from banal lyrics and diffuse song structures, and several seem to be here merely for the sake of political correctness and stylistic inclusiveness. (Santana plays at the Greek on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and in a blues festival at the Pacific Amphitheatre on Aug. 16.)

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four (excellent).