Ever since that fateful day that my now-defunct iPod played their speed-of-insanity “Diablo Rojo”, I have been deeply in love with the musical style of the brilliant, unique guitar duo that is Rodrigo y Gabriella. Comprising of Rodrigo Sánchez on lead guitar and Gabriella Quintero on lightspeed, percussive rhythmic guitar, the duo kicked off their notoriety by playing their heavymetal-esque acoustic flamenco style in bars across Dublin.
So you can imagine my excitement when my mom pointed out an album in a music store we happened to be passing. “Oh look, don’t you like them?”, she asked, pointing to the red and blue cover of El Rodi y La Gabi’s new album Area 52. I could barely contain myself: I didn’t just like them, I practically worshiped them – their previous albums have accompanied almost every shower I have taken since discovering them (the acoustics of tiled rooms are magnificent, aren’t they?), and their flamenco, triplet- and riff-driven guitar is half the reason I keep playing and practising, whittling my thumb away to nothing.
However, after giving this CD a few (dozen) listens, I was quite surprised. Much like the vegetarian lasagne they serve on Thursdays in the Dining Hall, I had to take quite a couple of bites just to decide whether I liked the new offering or not.
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| The crazy flamenco style of RyG joins C.U.B.A to produce some wonderful and sometimes curious results |
Area 52, the band’s fifth studio album, showcases a musical collaboration with C.U.B.A, a 13-piece Cuban Orchestra and various other guest musicians playing a variety of instruments, from sitars to rock drums. Some critics have said that the duo lack depth, and so perhaps a foray into a more encompassing style is a good one...
...or perhaps not.
Let me break down the CD into a track-by-track breakdown as they appear on the album.
“Santo Domingo” kicks off the album with a extraordinary intro that grabs you by the balls and gets you listening immediately. You can almost instantly feel the new edge to their sound: trumpets blast and interject to create a rich, exotic sound, and an added ‘wah’ effect to the guitar work makes the riff at once familiar and brand new. They stay true to much of their old style, with centrality being lent predominantly to the ever-inventive guitarists. However, the song quickly loses its flame to an unnecessarily long jazz piano solo piece, followed by… what the f-? Flutes? Really? Flutes. In a Rodrigo y Gabriella song? One simple question: why, God, why?
After the first song fades away, we are given a beautifully sculpted rendition of “Hanuman”. The song swells and resounds with a great Cuban interlude, and the electric guitar work and solos are nothing short of the fantastic Mexicano stylings that I fell in love with. My only critique would be that, apart from the solo, the guitar pieces are lost in the sounds of all the other instruments.
"Ixtapa" , the next track, is fantastically remastered. Their new rendition is absolutely tranquil, seeping a calmness that grows and swells with their amazing building progression. With the great guitar work that resonates so deeply within my heart, I just can’t help but scrunch up my eyes in utter incredulity. Their old style is mixed with new influences, fusing with definite Cuban styles to produce a wonderful achievement; and besides, just listen to the sitar work done by Anoushka Shankar – it’s damn near enough to make you cry, and it adds a poignant and wonderful dimension that I never thought the band could have.
“Master Maqui”, the next track, continues the guitar work nicely: again, it’s very good, even if it is at times lost to the other instruments. I constantly feel like the two primary guitarists are Jack Dawson, being forced to drown in the freezing Atlantic whilst that bitch Rose (in the form of trumpets, drums and those damned flutes) hogs the whole wooden float. At times, this song feels a little bit like a Broadway show-chorus tune, and at times it shows definite Arabian Nights influences. It’s… well, sometimes it’s nice, and sometimes I just have to ask “WTF?”.
Next is “Diablo Rogo”, the piece that captivated and awed me all those months ago. This track is one hell of a mean one: the old song is still definitely there, recapturing the heart-racing incessant awesomeness of their Spanish speed, driven even more crazy by ‘wah’-effect guitar, light piano and great drumming.
“Logos” was another one of my old favourites, simply because of it’s sheer foot-stomping addictiveness. Though this track is a slightly altered portrayal of the guitar in the original, it is by no means a bad song. In fact, it’s a whole different kind of addictive: it is unbelievably calm and yet at the same time driven, making your foot stomp all over again, and for much of it the accompanying orchestra is absent, which can be a good thing. All in all, this is a great reinvention that still stays true to the original.
“Juan Loco” is no different: though a very different feel to the original, the playful beat and melange of instruments and sounds make this song one that stays true to its roots whilst exploring other influences. The build in this song verges on sheer sonic mastery.
“Tamacun” is an all-time favourite of mine: after I practiced (for six long and arduous months) the insane, lightning-fast triplets Gabriella had shown in one of her tutorial videos, this is always a song I like to mess around with when I play live. This is a wonderful track to end this relatively short CD with: the song comes reinvented, bursting with a Cuban playfulness – saucy and spicy, with a lighter, jazzier sound that drives right to the heart of why I love this band so much. Like some of the other tracks the guitar is sometimes lost to other instruments: there is, for example, too much trumpet, I think, and you don’t get quite so much the palm slapping and percussive elements for which the virtuoso Gabriella is so well known. However, it’s still an awesome track.
So, my feelings at the end of it all are a bit mixed. Sure, as a localised Afro-Cuban experiment, the album works very, very well. However, I can’t help but feel that the very definite, unmistakable Rodrigo-y-Gabriella-ness of the band has taken a back seat in this experimental drive. Sure, their songs appear in some tangible form of their old glorious selves, but much of the sheer jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring guitar insanity for which they became so well-known has lost its centrality to a backdrop of trumpets, piano and (God help us) flutes. I really do get what they were trying to do with this album: to experiment and get a more localised flavour, to see what kind of a spin they could season their old favourites with, and to a certain extent it does work – the sitar, piano, drums and trumpets add a whole new dimension of sound. However, I must say that if I had wanted to buy a Cuban instrumental orchestra CD, I would have done so. At R150, I wanted the ear-pounding, soul-smashing heavy-metal-on-nylon duel fury that these two magnificent artists so expertly and easily dish out. This album, though it is a fantastic one, just fails to deliver the sheer guitar dexterity and mastership for which this duo has become famous. Where is the double, palm-muted body tapping of the old “Diablo Rojo”? Where is the simple ingenuity of the original “Ixtapa”? Alas, if you’re looking for a sound more reminiscent of their older eponymous album Rodrigo y Gabriella, or the unstoppable heart-racers of their Live albums (Manchester and Tokyo respectively), then perhaps Area 52 is just a time-killer until the next time they make an unbelievable amount of awesomeness out of two simple guitars.
