After the electric-guitar emphasis of 2023’s In Between Thoughts…A New World, Rodrigo y Gabriela could have continued expanding outward. Instead, OurHome brings the duo back toward the acoustic exchange that made their work instantly recognizable. That return does not amount to retreat. The 11-track album uses a familiar foundation to support vocals, piano, cello, new collaborators, and some of the broadest thematic writing of their career.
Rodrigo Sánchez and Gabriela Quintero recorded and self-produced the album at NK Sound Tokyo following a period of creative frustration. Its first breakthrough came through loss: the death of their studio cat Pelusa inspired Sánchez to write the title track. “OurHome” became the opening piece and the emotional key to a record preoccupied with the sources of safety, connection, and creative purpose.
Its most immediate surprise follows on the second track. “Somos Como Tú” is the first song in Rodrigo y Gabriela’s catalog to feature lyrics and vocals from the duo. Sánchez assumes the lead, Quintero answers with a rapid passage, and hand percussion and communal vocals give the song an extroverted energy that contrasts with the title track’s tenderness.
The transition between those first two pieces reveals the album’s range. “OurHome” grows from private grief, while “Somos Como Tú” looks outward toward migration and displacement. The latter song’s title translates as “We Are Like You,” framing its subject around equality and recognition. Written by Sánchez in Paris a decade ago, it has waited a long time for a musical setting that felt appropriate.
That setting works because OurHome repeatedly connects individual experience with wider patterns of movement. Sánchez and Quintero left Mexico, established themselves in Ireland, and built careers that carried them through Europe, Japan, and beyond. The album does not equate their choices with forced displacement, but it uses their familiarity with life between places to ask how people preserve a sense of self when geography keeps changing.
Instrumentally, the duo remain capable of generating remarkable contrast from two acoustic guitars. Delicate passages give way to forceful rhythmic sections, while their sharply defined roles continue to overlap and exchange. Dave Sardy’s mix maintains clarity across those shifts, and Stephen Marcussen’s mastering helps the additional instrumentation sit alongside the guitars rather than above them.
The guest performances are strongest when they reveal shared musical instincts. Hiromi’s appearance on “Akatsuki” works because her piano playing possesses the same percussive urgency that Rodrigo y Gabriela bring to guitar. Marty Friedman’s contribution to “Simurgh” creates a different connection, linking the closing track with the metal background that has always informed the duo’s acoustic music.
Narrative inspirations also give the album shape. “Monster” takes its name and thematic direction from Naoki Urasawa’s manga, with Urasawa creating the accompanying official video. “Akatsuki” draws upon Naruto, using its ideas about rebirth and moral complexity as part of a wider album concerned with transformation.
OurHome is persuasive because its movement forward begins with a clear understanding of what Rodrigo y Gabriela already do well. The record restores their acoustic guitars to the foreground while refusing to make familiarity the final destination. It is available now through ATO Records, and the duo’s North American tour begins September 30. Full dates and ticket details can be found on their tour page.
