Amazon.co.uk Review
Rodrigo and Gabriela are two fast-fingered, Dublin-based Mexicans with a unique sound created on acoustic guitars. Their music is difficult to define, straddling both world and rock, and often imbued with the timeless Hispano classical influences. The fire in it comes from their life-long passion for metal music. Rodrigo is a deft finger-picker who can move from raging speed to sensual soul in the space of a fret, while Gabriela employs fast, rhythmic techniques. Her percussionists thrashing of strings and drumming of the instruments body inevitably raises comparisons with flamenco which they acknowledge as an influence but swerve as a pigeonhole. The duos repertoire flies beyond familiar Latin folk guitar styles because of the metal connection: their reworkings of Led Zeppelins Stairway to Heaven and Metallicas Orion are musts, and the presence on "Ixtapa" of the fiery Hungarian gypsy violinist, Roby Lakatos, is inspirational.
CD Description
On their 2006 self-titled album, Rodrigo y Gabriela offer up a fierce set of acoustic instrumentals that garnered the Mexican guitar duo international attention. Technically accomplished, playful, and emotive, these tracks work in the flamenco and folk vernaculars while reverberating with rock energy, as revealed on the fleet-fingered "Tamacun" and the highly percussive "Diablo Rojo." However, the real showstoppers on RODRIGO Y GABRIELA are the pair's excellent covers of Metallica's "Orion" and Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," which both honor the hard-rock originals, and resonate with impressive added flourishes.
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