If nothing else, the self-inflated awfulness of the Mexican alt-rock band Jaguares proves how potent a force the Latin-music industry has become, extending beyond the candy-pop trifles of Ricky Martin and Marc Anthony.

Hailing from Mexico City, Los Jaguares have broken numerous album and ticket sales records for Spanish-language alternative rock acts, and are beginning to court mainstream stateside success; they recently appeared on “Late Night With Conan O?Brien” and are currently in the middle of a 60-city world tour. None of this, however, obscures the fact that Los Jaguares? new album, “Cuando la Sangre Galopa,” with its plodding guitars and humorless pretensions, plays like a shelved Candlebox Spanish-language project from the mid-1990?s.

Los Jaguares? religiously devoted fans and the messianic posturing of lead singer/guitarist/songwriter Saul Hernandez also recall the bombastic, rock-pulpit popularity of such equally unlistenable neo-grunge tagalongs as Creed and Live (Hernandez?s previous project, Caifanes, toured America with the latter band).

Hernandez, who resembles a softened Gary Cherone in his worst Jesus Christ pose, produced the disc alongside band mate Alfonso Andre, doling out the same chunky, muddled mix on every track, occasionally stirring in strings, piano and Latin percussion. Only when the band decorates its sludgy recordings with Latin rhythms and instrumentation, such as on the galloping tracks “La Vida No es Igual” and “El Secreto,” are Los Jaguares? grunge-lite noodlings made bearable.

Elsewhere, “Por un Beso” is the kind of watery alterna-ballad that Matchbox 20 has regrettably cashed in on, while the echo-drenched vocals and quasi-anthemic chorus of “Viaje Astral” summon the more ponderous posturings of savior-rockers U2. Jaguares? Web site asserts that Hernandez?s lyrics address issues of faith, politics and Mexican mysticism, and if I had paid more attention in Spanish class, I could verify this claim. However, the limp instrumentation and generic songwriting of Los Jaguares? “Cuando la Sangre Galopa” only prove that this kitten doesn?t have claws.