Ill Niño

The Under Cover Sessions (Cement Shoes)
by Martin Popoff

These Latino modern metal veterans haven’t gotten the exposure they deserve, given years spent writing through an exotic blend of Latin rhythms, guitar textures, and post-Seps metal riffery. Here we get a five-track EP housed in a nice digi-pack. Two tracks are originals, “Arrastra” being a little too nü metal, but “Reservation For Two” somehow being even more commercial, but really damn cool. I particularly dig the weird Latin jam halfway through. Cover-wise, Peter Gabriel’s “Red Rain” is a natural, Ill Niño writing some metal riffing for it, arranging obtusely, and adding their ubiquitous Latin percussion. Nirvana’s “Territorial Pissings” gets more of a standard punk rock out. Faith No More’s awesome “Zombie Eaters” features Chino Moreno, and is tight and progressive, but quite faithful to the original, save for, again, the bongo madness. I’m not sure this is necessary as often as they think so.
(www.cementshoesrecords.com)