Ladrones have been busy. After dropping their brilliant sophomore album Mexican Pesado in Spring of 2025, the Guadalajara djent/nu/corrido genre-twisters toured the length and breadth of Latin America while lining up an impressive run of collaborative singles with Barcelona-based rapper Santa Salut, Argentinian nu-metal artist Muñeki77a, and norteño artist Yng Naz–this collab in particular was so undeniable we had no choice but to give it an Agendy for ‘Best Melodramatic Breakup Song’ when the year wrapped up. After signing to US-based Rise Records this March, Ladrones released a new single, “Ay Ay Ay,” toured the United States for the first time supporting Indian folk metal/nu-metal legends Bloodywood on the System of a Brown Tour, and started teasing an upcoming album.
As a personal aside, I was in the audience for their Boston stop this past May, and have never seen a Boston crowd go as hard for a metal band as the Paradise Rock Club did for Ladrones and Bloodywood that night.
The title track for Arriba La L dropped as a second single in late June, a third single and closing track “No Que No” dropped in late July, and a mere year and three months after the release of Mexican Pesado, the band’s third album is hitting shelves and streaming platforms at the tail end of a uniquely hot summer.
As a lead single, “Ay Ay Ay” wasn’t a huge departure from what we’d heard from the band before, treading familiar ground of 8 string guitar-assisted corridos, but the second and third singles correctly hinted that the return to formula was just the tip of an exciting iceberg full of new genre-bending experiments that will give Arriba La L the same kind of longevity Mexican Pesado caught in its grip last year. But you don’t get a full taste of what you’re in for until you press play on album opener “Fierro, Viejo,” a two-minute instrumental that starts with genuinely beautiful corrido guitar interplay, and then slowly gives way to a brutal, proggy djent arrangement full of metric modulation and infectious groove before transitioning seamlessly into the intro “Ay Ay Ay” fucking deserves. José Macario is one of the most technical and emotive guitarists in the metal world right now, and he’s got a fantastic partner behind the drumkit in Diego Zornoza–after spending the past year catching hints of what these folks are capable of cooking up together, it’s an absolute blast to see them flex this hard.
Macario’s clearly wanted to do stuff like this for a while–he’s a prolific hip-hop producer in the Guadalajara scene as well, and Ladrones was born sometime in 2021 when he added drums, bass, and guitar to a track he was producing for Zyxmyr. The project’s only taken on more members since then, and this latest album shows all of them firing on all cylinders and complementing each other in new and exciting ways.
Second single “Arriba La L” is the perfect example of the band’s evolution–compared to Mexican Pesado the hip-hop influence and the level of heavy groove is amped up considerably. Dueling emcees Zyxmyr and Cirujano Rezendez trade half-sung, half-rapped verses while playing hot potato with rapid-fire hooks. The most exciting thing about this dynamic is it’s not the same old Jekyll and Hyde situation where someone sings/screams and someone raps–Zyxmyr tends to sing higher and brighter and take on hype man duties, where Rezendez usually comes in with a gruffer, grittier resonance, but they both sing, they both rap, and, notably, there is barely any screaming, but the arrangements are bursting at the seams with urgency, and both vocalists are talented emcees that know exactly what to do to make what the rest of the band’s doing pop without it.
We've gotten tastes of this style from Latin American artists so far in the 2020s, but nothing this convincing, and nothing with the sheer level of production brilliance and staying power on display here. One-off djent/rap albums like Teorema's Cóndor (2021) (which I wrote about at length here) and heartbreakingly short-lived but brilliant bands like São Paolo's InDharma (if you haven't heard "Pêndulo," go listen to that shit right now and then come back) all walked in the pouring rain against the current so that a group of seasoned musicians and songwriters from Guadalajara could pick up the scattered signposts of a uniquely Latin American nu-metal revival and forge ahead harder than anyone–including themselves–has done before.
The next track “Pa Llegar A Fin De Mes” (“To Get to the End of the Month”) starts heavy, but slides into a quirky groove that would not be out of place on a Wes Borland project, as Zyxmyr and Rezendez trade verses about doing what it takes to survive and find meaning growing up and making a life in rough places. The band behind them is tight enough at this point that the album feels like a uniquely Mexican take on Gold Cobra–Macario’s guitar work is varied and interesting enough to evoke a less goofy, late-career Limp Bizkit. And honestly, with the number of times that 'Arriba la L' ('lift up the L,' a career-long callout encouraging fans to throw up the band's handsign) and 'Flow Pesado' (the band's name for their amalgamated style) pop up in these songs as hooks or ad-libs, there is a level of commitment to personal branding on this album shared only by Fred Durst and the vast majority of Pokémon. It would come off as cheesier if the arrangements and production weren't hitting quite as hard, and if the band's twin frontmen weren't playing it completely straight, with earnest and boundless energy.
The album takes a mellower turn after these first few tracks with “Esto De Estar Solo,” a ballad which tries to recall the heights of Mexican Pesado album highlight “No Vuelve” and Yng Naz collaborative single “Nunca Quise Irme” without quite getting there–compared to these past temazos, and to the other heavier-on-average offerings on this album, it feels like they’re playing it too safe. The next track, “Malditos Sentimientos” (“Damn Feelings”) keeps the tempo low but feels genuinely fresh, combining a 6/8 ballad about falling for a romantically disinterested hookup buddy with soaring guitar work from Macario that recalls the most beautiful and crushing parts of Panopticon by early ‘00s Boston heroes Isis. No, seriously. So many of the musical choices on this album feel so natural in this much more radio-friendly context that it’s hard to believe I haven’t heard it attempted a million times already.
That gets at what continues to grab me about this band in particular–what I love about Ladrones is that they’re able to draw a wealth of inspiration from the wild corners of progressive and extreme metal that have sprung up since nu metal’s last moment in the sun, and braid all of it with hip-hop and Mexican regional music in a way that’s incredibly technical but still feels effortlessly catchy. This album scratches the same itch Hybrid Theory did when I first encountered it in middle school, with a level of confident swagger and world-battered joie de vivre that makes this whole nu-metal revival thing feel worth it.
Late-album highlights include “Cali,” a Polyphia and math rock-inspired victory lap about their growing and much-deserved international success, the go-for-the-jugular blast beat aggression of “Traición,” and album closer “No Que No,” which combines some genuinely brilliant guitar melodies with a reggaeton and dembow-inspired backbeat. We’ve heard reggaeton breakdowns before–we live in a world where “Suffocate” by Knocked Loose and Poppy exists–but nobody on Earth has sold the concept quite as well as Ladrones do at the close of this album. “No Que No” is equal parts melodic and catchy for the majority of its length, until after the last chorus, when a woman drops a sultry ‘Uy…flow pesado’ before the floor of the club drops out and lands somewhere in hell, dembow beat returning at half time as Macario chugs through an absolutely filthy breakdown with the nine-string guitar he was saving for this specific occasion.
Everything about “No Que No” is gratuitous–the nine-string guitar breakdown, the attempt to write a reggaeton hit and metal song at the same time, the self-aggrandizing lyrics (“They’re saying I’m the most son-of-a-bitch flow in existence,” “What, you don’t love jackals like me?” etc. etc.), the music video set in a dusty dive bar and strip club filled with scantily clad goth girls throwing ass and band members throwing crisp bills, the one final sexed-up ‘flow pesado’ branding opportunity before the album-closing, earth-shattering breakdown hits. But it’s also so tight. The hooks hit convincingly, Macario’s lead guitar work in the intro and verses is fantastic, his feel for timing and the way the rhythms unfold over the course of the song is deceptively intricate, and the fact that it all comes together the way it does in what the guitarist describes as an “unapologetic party track” gives it an undeniable charm–the song, and the album as a whole, are just really, really fun.
That’s honestly where Arriba La L derives most of its appeal for me, and how it charts a course for what nu-metal can and should be as it blasts its proverbial shotgun in the air riding full speed into the back half of the 2020s. Yeah, this band is flirting pretty hard with the same kind of self-aggrandizing machismo found in early ‘00s post-grunge, but they’re incredibly talented musicians and songwriters who inject undeniable amounts of genuine heart into what they do. There’s none of old-school nu’s navel-gazing self-pity here, just a hefty dose of swagger, confident aggression, and emotional depth backed up by an infectious enthusiasm for the craft.
Ladrones have caught lightning in a bottle here, are clearly having a blast messing around with it and sharing the results with us, and I hope they personally keep this train rolling for as long as that remains the case–and not a second longer.
Ladrones are making appearances at Louder than Life Festival on September 18th, Aftershock on October 4th, and Dia De Los Deftones on November 7th, and starting in February of 2027 will embark on a rescheduled tour of the US and Canada in support of tech-instrumental genre mashers Polyphia. Full dates are below:
02/05 Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre
02/06 Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues
02/09 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium
02/11 Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues
02/14 San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic
02/17 Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre
02/19 Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
02/20 Denver, CO @ Fillmore Auditorium
02/23 Minneapolis, MN @ Uptown Theatre
02/24 Milwaukee, WI @ Landmark Credit Union Live
02/25 Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom
02/26 Indianapolis, IN @ Egyptian Room at Old National Centre
02/27 Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore Detroit
03/02 Toronto, ON @ Great Canadian Toronto
03/03 Montreal, QC @ L'Olympia
03/05 Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore Philadelphia
03/06 Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount
03/07 Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway
03/09 Washington, DC @ Echostage
03/10 Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz
03/12 Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore Charlotte
03/13 Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live
03/14 St. Petersburg, FL @ Jannus Live
03/16 Atlanta, GA @ Coca-Cola Roxy
03/17 Birmingham, AL @ Avondale Brewing Company
03/18 Nashville, TN @ The Truth
03/20 Dallas, TX @ South Side Ballroom
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