Totimoshi - Milagrosa

Genre rock Publisher Volcom Entertainment

Oakland, CA band Totimoshi has been dispensing their brand of hard rock for over a decade.  Comprised of lead singer/guitarist Tony Aguilar and bassist Meg Castallanos, Totimoshi’s music has garnered comparisons to grunge pioneers such as The Melvins and Nirvana.  Yet, the comparisons are only semi-accurate.  Each release shows Totimoshi embracing different styles, from heavy metal to folk and country.  And throughout it all, the band infuses their music with the Latin rhythms and beats that define their people, their culture, and themselves.  Even the band’s name pays homage to the influence the members’ heritage has on their music.  As Aguilar explains, Totimoshi is a term his mother coined for his grandmother’s broken English. 

Picture this – a mother cradling a baby in her arms.  Got it?  Good.  Now picture the mother and baby stripped down to the bone, literally.  This vaguely unsettling image adorns the cover of Totimoshi’s new concept album, Milagrosa.  One listen to the music and it’s easy to understand why the band chose such an image.  As lead singer/guitarist Tony Aguilar explains, “I wrote most of the songs as an imaginary fight between love/compassion and hate/violence.”  Or, as the cover art suggests, the battle between life and death.

Milagrosa kicks off with Sound the Horn, a high-powered behemoth that acts as a warning beacon for those who pass through its musical shores.  Horn is held together by innumerable strands – drums (courtesy of new drummer, Chris Fugitt) that topple over the listener, guitar work reminiscent of Jane’s Addiction in their drug-addled prime, and lyrics that pulsate with the folk singer’s desire to spin a yarn and the punk/grunge urge to inflict their angst on the audience.

The band’s penchant for storytelling comes out in full force on the title track, with a lone acoustic guitar accompanying Aguilar’s weary voice as he tells a mystical story about a deceased child’s never-ending search to reunite with his deceased mother.  As with most folk songs, the guitar adds the right balance of atmosphere and space so listeners can imagine the story unfolding in their mind’s eye.  

Through it all, there’s a sense of grandeur and intensity that owes as much to Totimoshi’s heavy metal roots as it does to the infusion of Latin rhythms and melodies.  Last Refrain borrows heavily from the sound Mars Volta helped pioneer, a sound I like to call heavy metal opera.  Listening carefully, however, one can hear the band’s own Latin roots, particularly in Aguilar’s guitar fills and solo.  The fight between love and hate has never sounded so heavy, melodic, and exciting.

Credit for the epic, sweeping sound of Milagrosa goes to producer Page Hamilton of Helmet, and newly-added engineer, Toshi Kasai, who helped produce The Melvins ’ A Senile Animal.  The production enriches the music, giving every sound and instrument space to breathe.  Don’t get me wrong, though – the quality production values haven’t tamed Totimoshi’s exuberant, wild-haired sound.   On Milagrosa, the band continues to spew the fire and lightning that has won them such high regard.