Both members of Cardiel—guitarist/vocalist Miguel Fraino and drummer Samantha Ambrocio—are skateboard fanatics, which might explain the nature of their band’s music. It’s frenetic, huge sounding, reflective at times, and bumpy. In other words, it’s the perfect soundtrack for a shredders’ day or night out.
Formed in 2010 in Mexico City, both members hail from the city of Valencia, Venezuela. Fraino and Ambrocio have been playing in bands together in their native town, as well as in Miami where they both migrated before they found each other again in the Mexican capital, where they decided to make a band that sounded like the songs used in skate videos, “from Slayer to Barrington Levy,” in their own words. They have released two EPs previous to Local Solo, many of the songs from these joints have been re-recorded for their first full-length. Both Cardiel members are skilled sound engineers, so it comes as no surprise that the record is produced and mixed by them.
Local Solo mixes and matches stoner, noise rock, and dub reggae into a seamless fabric of sound. They can be chaotic, riff hard on blues scales at the speed of hardcore, or get down to a rocksteady riddim. Through their use of effect pedals and their naturally-evolving arrangements, Cardiel conjures a style that wraps you and attacks, only to contract and let you breath. Most of all, they make you go into an intense ride with tracks like “GNB,” rattle you with noise on “W&W,” or give you a good soulful skanking on “Preveral En El Coping” without sounding schizophrenic. A marvelous, organic and exciting record.