This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.

Ill Nino: Christian Machado (vocals); Jardel Paisante, Ahrue Luster (guitar); Laz Pina (bass); Dave Chavarri (drums); Danny Couto (percussion).

Additional personnel: Marc Rizzo (acoustic guitar, guitar); Mikey Doling (guitar); Bob Marlette (piano); Omar Clavijo (keyboards, programming, turntable); Joe Rodriguez (percussion); Max Illidge (background vocals).

Recorded at Water Music Studios, Hoboken, New Jersey; Mirror Image Recorders, New York, New York.

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.

It's perhaps logical that this latest exercise in combining swaying Latin rhythms and full-on heavy metal would come from the swamps of New Jersey-certain parts of the state have long been fertile territory for metal in its hydra-headed manifestations. CONFESSION, Ill Nino's sophomore album, builds and improves upon the band's integration of the two musical forms in a tour de force of titanium-throated vocals, hairpin rhythms, and speaker-shredding guitars.

The Latin influence manifests itself in percussive shadings and a melodicism on tracks such as "Lifeless-Life" and "Unframed" that push the band beyond stock metal riffing. The music even bears a certain lilt-not a word usually associated with the foundation-shaking bass and breakneck drumming of the genre-that sets Ill Nino apart from most of its Jersey-based contemporaries and more than a few national acts to boot. Though the combination of Hispanic culture and metal isn't new, Ill Nino certainly displays enough confidence and natural-born swagger on CONFESSION to make it seem that way.

What the critics say...

CMJ (9/29/03, p.24) - "...Finds the New Jersey sextet perfecting its fusion of nu-metal arrangements, polished vocals and Latin polyrhythms..."