Rodrigo y Gabriela - Mettal EP

Before they became acoustic guitar heroes, Rodrigo y Gabriela were thrash metal kids in Mexico City, and the Mettal EP lets that past roar back through two acoustic guitars.

Rodrigo Sánchez and Gabriela Quintero first played together in a Mexico City metal band before moving to Dublin and reinventing themselves as an instrumental acoustic duo. Their fierce strumming and percussive, body-slapping technique always carried the DNA of their heavy roots, and in 2019, the year of their album Mettavolution, which went on to win a Grammy, they made the connection explicit.

Three covers make up the EP, one apiece from thrash metal's heaviest hitters. Metallica's "Battery" gallops at breakneck speed, Slayer's "Seasons in the Abyss" turns its menace into something brooding and cinematic, and Megadeth's "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" becomes a showcase of furious precision and sudden dynamic shifts. Hearing those riffs rebuilt without a single distortion pedal is a thrill in itself.

The pair never treat the material as a novelty. Every solo and breakdown is played with the respect of lifelong fans, and the speed and accuracy on display are frankly startling.

It is a short, thrilling curio for metalheads and acoustic guitar fans alike, and proof that heavy music is about attitude as much as amplification.