Totimoshi

For their fourth full-length, Oakland’s Totimoshi shift gears from their Melvins-meets-Theory of Ruin early career to their newfound stance on metal: homegrown slabs of hard rock with strains of bluesy Led Zeppelin and Southern boogie children Blackfoot. The title track hems and haws with laggard chords before cranking up and kicking out the jams, and "In Virgo” and "The Dance of Snakes” shore up Antonio Aguilar’s meaty guitar riffs and Meg Castellanos’ buoyant bass lines. This is where the previous affiliations end, however: "Gods of Earth” sounds like a heavier version of David Bowie’s "Ziggy Stardust,” while "Viva Zapata” is a not-so-distant cousin of "Victim of Changes”-era Judas Priest. "A Weighted Line” starts like Melvins-inspired doom rock, but then it alters course near the middle to approach early Pink Floyd, circa Atom Heart Mother. "To the Fire” lies like a lazy dog between Neil Young and Tom Petty, reprised acoustically in "These Meanings.” Aguilar sports a throaty drawl throughout the album, and he goes from a whisper to a bellow in the wildly aggressive "The Hide,” with Castellanos’ gentle backups easing the sting like rubbing alcohol. True to the album’s name (Spanish for "thief”), Ladrón swipes and steals from many different genres, reassembling the shards into a unique conglomerate that will challenge and temper metal fans’ beliefs.