Although they’ve been making music together for a decade now, Rodrigo y Gabriela have surprisingly few studio albums to their name. Given that, it came as quite a surprise to me that Area 52 is a revisiting of a conglomeration of previous studio efforts by the Latin acoustic metal duo. My initial response, that Area 52 is a nine-song masturbation, could not be more accurate. And I mean that in the absolute best way possible.
In finally, at long last, adopting a band to play along with them, Rodrigo y Gabriela have shown fans the fullest potential of nine of their best songs. The personnel that the two have recruited are nothing short of stellar, with the likes of heavy metal mainstay John Tempesta guesting on drums several times and even the prolific sitarist Anoushka Shankar making a guest appearance on the band’s reinterpretation of their own “Ixtapa.”
The result is the best Latin rock album we’ve heard this side of Supernatural, a comparison not lost on the band as they dedicated the 2009 track “Hanuman” (another inclusion on Area 52) to a fellow Mexican guitarist, the legendary Carlos Santana. The authenticity brought to the music by Rodrigo y Gabriela, as well as the veritable army of Latin music virtuosos that have joined in the fray for Area 52 is remarkable and makes for an exciting and vastly improved listening experience. Where as the constant pluck and strum of two acoustic guitars may have grown stale across their previous few albums, there is now new life injected into this deserving project.
Rodrigo y Gabriela has taken what was so impressive about their old recordings and spliced that awe inspiring technical ability with what has made the last ten years of live concerts so damn compelling for millions of fans around the world. The whole of Area 52 reads like a concert, a multi-tens-of-thousands-of-people dance party that may even reinvigorate an entire genre with a rich melange of influences that make it even more accessible – not to mention outright enjoyable – than any of the bands already successful efforts to date.
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