Los Bonsáis managed to release a few dozen songs in their first years as a band, but the output was always short and sweet. Along with several demos and EPs, the closest thing the fuzzy indie pop band from Asturias, Spain, had to a traditional album was 2015's
Nordeste, a here-and-gone romp of ten songs with an average running time of one minute and 43 seconds each. Four years later,
Hinoki marks the group's first fully formed album, and sees them developing their sound by stripping away the toothy noise of their earlier days. Album opener "¡No Quiero Salir!" is squeaky clean in comparison to the shoegaze din of the band's previous catalog, an upbeat and carefree pop tune where spacious production highlights the interplay between Nel González's jangly guitar and Helena Toraño's airy double-tracked vocals. Though some distortion hides in the corners throughout
Hinoki, the sound is more
Marine Girls than
Black Tambourine on beachy songs like "Septiembre" or the slow-building "La Travesía." The band's former fixation with shoegaze seems to be all but gone, showing up only in the ember-like guitar tones that sink to the lower levels of reworked older song "Nubes Y Claros" or gentle rockers like "Algo Extraño." By and large,
Hinoki is a softer, more mature side of the band. Where walls of guitar once colored the songs, now bass leads most of the minimal arrangements. At its mellowest point, the drifty acoustic ballad "No Es Para Tanto," the album starts to get a little too sleepy, but
Los Bonsáis find balance on the gorgeously slow-moving album closer "Galaxia." While significantly less bristling than the band's beginnings,
Hinoki's songs are exciting in more subdued ways, daring to offer their straightforward arrangements and winsome melodies unobscured by noise. ~ Fred Thomas