NINO's as-yet-untitled début album will be at once familiar and fresh-sounding to listeners. It is very much a rock album in its format and execution — however, the electric guitar and keyboards familiar to North American listeners are not leading this particular parade. Founding member and multi-instrumentalist Neal Barenblat immersed himself in various styles of Andean folk music during his time in South America, and the influence of which are front and centre throughout — along with the use of traditional Andean instruments.
What Barenblat couldn't explain in his biography, and what is probably impossible to convey in writing, is how incredibly well he has formed a single orchestra from instruments and styles which should, on paper, be disparate. The album is focussed on ensemble pieces in which no one instrument is given prevalence over another, and the instruments form a tight choir in his hands — a listener wouldn't know that synthesizers weren't designed from the ground up to be used in tandem with charangos and sikus, or that rock drum kits weren't developed for use with cuatros and quenas, or that electric guitars weren't crafted specifically with djembes in mind.
The fun that Barenblat had on his Andean jaunt is apparent — the entire album is infused with a happiness that is bouncy but never gets overbearing. At some times epic and sweeping, at others intimate and down to earth, the music sounds like the work of someone thinking much much bigger than the confines of a single album, as if Barenblat was trying to convey the entire scope and scale of the Andes in 4/4 time — and largely succeeding.
~ STEELCAVER
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