Ronin
Fenice
Tannen Records

Links:
Ronin Official Site
Ronin on MySpace
Tannen Records

According to the translation of the band’s biography from their website via GoogleTranslate,  Ronin is a mixture of Balkan and Mediterranean traditional music.
Descriptions I’ve seen around describe them as folk, rock, and “world” music. I really dislike the adjective “world” when describing or categorizing music, as it seems obvious that someone in the world put music together… how could anyone get away from that?

Being completely unfamiliar with the sounds and structures of either Balkan or Mediterranean genres of music, I’ll review them in terms of what I am familiar with.

Fenice (“phoenix” in Italian) is primarily an instrumental ambient album, save for a fine cover of the Evin Drake song “It Was a Very Good Year.” Most of the tracks are sweet and pretty well produced. There is some level clipping and under production; though it comes through consistently enough to sound intentional. The album doesn’t have very wide tempo or key ranges, making the tracks rather well-connected to each other.

Nine tracks appear on Fenice, which was released earlier this year. Most of the tracks could pass for maybe a smoky adult (read: slower, intentional) version of surf music with the guitar reverb that is employed liberally throughout the album. The drums are steady and strong with a quiet production of the noisy drums, giving off a feel that much more could be done if Paolo Mangardi was turned loose in an exponentially noisier band.

Any fans of Public Radio International’s “Echoes” radio program at nights will appreciate most of the tracks on the album, especially “Selce,” a slow and droning piece that rolls back and forth for four-and-a-half music. It’s no surprise that Ronin’s music appear in soundtracks; they make excellent background music for indie art films. Their music would have fit in perfectly on the soundtrack for “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.”

“Spade” opens the album with triple arpeggios between the strings in a dizzying swirl, backed by steady and slow drums. If Slayer or Iron Maiden played soft rock, their solos would sound like this.

“Benevento” stands out as a somewhat rowdier track, with open hi-hats and jangly and lightly distorted guitars. It recalls Karate à la “In Place of Real Insight,” if they just let the music jam out a bit.