Ernest Gonzales gets important help from some guest stars on his debut album as Mexicans With Guns. (Oliver Kish)Mexicans With Guns is the nom de electro of San Antonio-based, luchador-mask-wearing Ernest Gonzales, a producer/remixer/recording artist fond of cross-breeding Hispanic folk music with electronica.
A better-than-usual assortment of club hits, obligatory star collaborations and filler, “Ceremony,” Mexicans With Guns’ official full-length debut, is a dark, bass-heavy mixture of dubstep, hip-hop, ’90s-style drum ’n’ bass and old-school 8-bit.
Though Gonzales can be a little too downbeat when left to his own devices (like on “Death and Rebirth,” a chirpy, clattery bummer of a track), “Ceremony” is enlivened by guest turns from gangsta rapper Freddie Gibbs (who turns up on the awe-inspiring, otherwise funereal “Highway to Hell”) and Antibalas’s Chico Mann, whose cameo on last year’s hit “Me Gusto” helps make that gauzy, cumbia-inspired track the lightest, greatest thing here.
Recommended tracks: “Highway to Hell,” “Me Gusto,” “Dame Lo”
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