{"id":7258,"date":"2012-10-22T00:00:58","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T00:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=7258"},"modified":"2013-06-01T14:36:56","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T14:36:56","slug":"album-review-ill-nino-epidemia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-ill-nino-epidemia\/","title":{"rendered":"ILL NI\u00d1O – Epidemia (2012) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

ILL NI\u00d1O
Epidemia<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nAFM (2012)<\/span>
Rating: 6.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Part of the second wave of nu-metal bands, Ill Ni\u00f1o hit the big time with their debut album, Revolution Revoluci\u00f3n<\/em> (2001), and its follow-up, Confession<\/em> (2003). After having sold over three million albums, the New Jersey band took a stab at a heavier sound, moving slightly away from their tribally integrated early sound. On Epidemia<\/em> we get a healthy dose of both sides of the band\u2019s musical personality. <\/p>\n

The album kicks off with its undisputed highlights, \u2018The Depression\u2019 and \u2018Only The Unloved\u2019. \u2018The Depression\u2019 is more of a blend, featuring low growls and angry guitars intermingled with bright, salvation-is-here, big anthem choruses. The drums just drive this song to a whole new level though, sounding huge and world-influenced without completely embracing the influence.<\/p>\n

\u2018Only The Unloved\u2019 takes everything that is good about the former and turns it up a notch. Everything is a bit bigger, a bit pissier, and a bit brighter in all the right spots. Again, the drumming pushes everything over the top. \u2018Death Wants More\u2019, \u2018Escape\u2019 and \u2018Forgive Me Father\u2019 fit perfectly alongside the opening tracks but, unfortunately, come later in the album, pulling you back in from the land of mind-wandering.<\/p>\n

So that begs the question as to why your mind would wander after the first couple of tracks, right? For me, it\u2019s the other side of the band\u2019s musical personality. There are a lot of moments here where the band tries to be way more extreme than they are capable of. \u2018La Epidemia\u2019 is the prime example here. It\u2019s thick, angry, and features a back and forth vocal between cookie monster and shrieking with the occasional spoken piece. Normally I don\u2019t mind any of those things but Ill Ni\u00f1o just aren\u2019t any good at it.<\/p>\n

\u2018Time Won\u2019t Save You\u2019 doesn\u2019t fare much better, and \u2018Eva\u2019 comes off pretty well until the downright terrible break mid-song that sounds like a nu-metal band trying to cover a Behemoth track in the middle of a radio-friendly rock song. I\u2019m still scratching my head.<\/p>\n

Overall, if you could knock about four tracks off of this it would be really solid. The band still have their feet planted firmly in the nu-metal scene but, at this point, that\u2019s where their fans are (and hopefully their heart too). If you didn\u2019t like Ill Ni\u00f1o before, you aren\u2019t going to be won over by Epidemia<\/em>. With that said, this is significantly better than their last two albums and longtime fans will have a lot more to enjoy than they expect. <\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ILL NI\u00d1OEpidemia AFM (2012)Rating: 6.5\/10 Part of the second wave of nu-metal bands, Ill Ni\u00f1o hit the big time with their debut album, Revolution Revoluci\u00f3n (2001), and its follow-up, Confession (2003). After having sold over three million albums, the New Jersey band took a stab at a heavier sound, moving slightly away from their tribally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,385],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-ill-nino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7258"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7268,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258\/revisions\/7268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}