Send "Mexicans With Guns " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Ernest Gonzales, aka Mexicans With Guns, seems disinterested in things like nuance and pacing. Often seen outfitted in a luchador mask, Gonzales clearly has a flair for the theatrical, and his debut LP, Ceremony, strives for the cinematic. Rooted in drum'n'bass while touching on everything from 8-bit to dubstep to house, Gonzales aims to assault your senses with all the subtlety of a frying pan smack.But for all its range, Ceremony suffers from being brazenly repetitive, relying on flash instead of substance and betraying a lack of restraint. Tracks are build around deep bass, throbbing swaths of electronics, and errant sound effects, all of which are usually contrasted by a mercurial element, like say, a brief, semi-melodious synth line. The resulting tracks sadly feel too truncated for the dancefloor and too monotonous for headphones. Gonzales does have a solid feel for the role of percussion in his futuristic assemblages, such as the shakers and claps on the alien, evil "Jaguar" or the riotous cowbells on "Fields". And despite a lack of variance, Gonzales proves to be an interesting mimic at times, offering a slightly less-heady approximation of a Zomby track ("Fields"), and channeling a menace-dripping Massive Attack ("Restart"). The latter gets a boost from vocalist Sasha Perera, who finds herself in the esteemed company rapper Freddie Gibbs and folk-futurist Helado Negro, proving, if nothing else, that at least the guy has taste....full text |
| Residentadvisor |
| The debut album from San Antonio-based Ernest Gonzales' latest project Mexicans With Guns is all about contrasts. The humorously violent name doesn't quite mesh with the beautiful, vaguely sepulchral album art, and even at its dirtiest, Gonzales' unclassifiable party music never shies away from pretty melodies or sparkling synths. The latest in a series of singular beat music LPs from LA, Ceremony settles into a surprisingly unique niche of hip-hop-compatible uptempo bass music. While producers making skewed, quirky hip-hop are a dime a dozen these days, Mexicans With Guns doesn't make exaggerated blasts of compressed speaker-rattling midrange funk. The two things that make Ceremony such an interesting listen are its elegant subtlety and accomplished synth work. The album's consistent framework is built from a grumbling bass synth and bright, perky arpeggios, referencing the best of Just Blaze and DJ Toomp as much as like-minded dubstep producers. Ceremony is reverent and careful rather than caricature in its merging of the two: the mix of sugary melodic elements and menacing doom manifests itself in unclassifiable tracks like "Fields" and "Deities," where the white-hot melodic elements burn holes in the gurgling low-end. The fusion aspect culminates in the mid-album peak of "Highway to Hell," a vocal track featuring the MCing talents of Freddie Gibbs and stunning Dirty South bombast, its icy organ tones beefed up with Gonzales' percussive skill. If nothing else, it hints at a potentially-strong future in hip-hop for Gonzales, and I'm not the only one who thinks so: the pre-album run-up saw a vinyl single with an added verse from UGK legend Bun B....full text |
| Washingtonpost |
| 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....full text |
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