For me, Ill Niňo from New Jersey,USA were the one shining beacon of the ghastly nu-metal era. I regarded them as a big cut above the others with decent metal songs, good harmonies and an interesting Latin element. I own their 2001 album “Revolution Revolución”. We’ve now arrived at album #6 with “Epidemia”.

The Latin element remains in the extremely colourful and lively drum work, a real plus point of this band and their albums. Other than that it’s mostly gone, with the exception of “Escape” whose guitar pattern signals the band’s ethnic origins. This album is recognisably Ill Niňo. Essentially they are a heavy metal band with strong melodies and harmonies. There’s that strange growling going on in the background, which doesn’t seem to do anything other than act as a historical time mark. It’s all fine but what is most noticeable is how metal has moved on and has left behind the rather trite structures of the nu-metal age. There are faint touches of that here, but I always thought Ill Niňo mostly transcended all that anyway.

The kind of thing which strikes me as being rather odd now and possibly did back then is typified by the last track “Invisible People”. The repeated chant of “The streets are my own” on the final track is presumably some sort of statement of defiance or threat, so I don’t think it’s appropriate to follow it with a clean melodic harmony, which is distinctly unthreatening. I may be splitting hairs here because actually this isn’t a bad album at all and it’s well delivered. It’s lively, the tracks are catchy and both the clean and growled vocals are good. It is strange that an album with so much growling should seem so harmless, but fast and catchy tracks like “La Epidemia” and “Escape” are exciting and pull us along in their momentum. Even the more mellow tracks – mercifully there are no ballads, just melodic songs – like “Time Won’t Save You” have character and structure. And then there are the drum rhythms, which are just superb.

As heavy metal, this is at the softer end of the scale in spite of the outward appearance of aggression. What Ill Niňo do give us is some melodic and well-structured songs, and excellent drum patterns. I enjoyed “Epidemia”.

(6.5/10 Andrew Doherty)

www.illnino.com