Torres’ patter easily upstages his pop

“Welcome to a journey where love and respect are the key words,” Argentine pop star Diego Torres breathily announced as he began his 2 1/2-hour performance on Sunday at the House of Blues. “Welcome to a different world.”

A heartfelt statement, perhaps, but also a misleading one, because the musical world that the singer inhabits is anything but different. In fact, it’s a celebration of everything that is cliched and banal about Latin pop.

Fueled by immaculately orchestrated layers of Spanish guitars, polite brass riffs and over-the-top female choruses, Torres’ confections belong in that bizarre sonic purgatory where radio-friendly Latin music habitually exists, complete with innocuous echoes of watered-down Afro-Caribbean idioms.

It took a tune from legendary songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat’s “Penelope” to give the show a moment of intensity, one enhanced by Richard Nanta’s plaintive trumpet solo. “Ojos Negros,” the lyrically hackneyed but infectious story of a Buenos Aires streetwalker co-written by Torres, was another highlight.

Torres’ onstage patter was far more interesting than the songs. The former actor is charismatic in a rugged, slightly off-key way, and his long tale of a trip to Mexico with his girlfriend, Colombian actress Angie Cepeda, was classic stand-up material. Cool and affable, the singer possesses a kind of down-to-earth demeanor that makes his popularity understandable. On Sunday his effort to communicate with the crowd in a direct, warm fashion was utterly refreshing.