• The ATL's Young Jeezy drops his highly-anticipated third album, The Recession. "Previously criticized for strange rhymes and repeating lines, Jeezy delivers some great turns of phrase," commends Billboard.com. "Jeezy’s improvement as a lyricist is obvious. It’s almost hard to believe that there was a time when the highlights of his songs were his adlibs," gushes Vibe magazine, adding, "the Snowman has proven he won’t melt under the pressure of flashing lights."
• Beef-loving L.A. rapper The Game releases LAX, his follow-up to the platinum Doctor's Advocate. The Los Angeles Times thinks it misses the mark: "The Compton-raised rapper's conservative inclination to stick to the gangsta tropes of money, drugs and guns feels limiting at times, as does the album's bloated 1-hour-and-16-minute running time." URB magazine begs to differ: "Sure, it turns into some serious namedropping (almost always), but it’s also the reason why he’s three-for-three in the category of dope, dope records."
• After a five-year hiatus, veteran metalheads Metallica return with Death Magnetic, an album that is "the musical equivalent of Russia's invasion of Georgia — a sudden act of aggression from a sleeping giant," according to Rolling Stone. Music blog The Quietus says Death Magnetic "rinse[s] away the painful memories of watching Some Kind Of Monster, [which shows] Metallica as a bunch of whining, apron tied clowns with no social skills."
• Tween superstars Jonas Brothers release A Little Bit Longer. Entertainment Weekly gives it a "B+" and congratulates: "Assuming each generation gets the teen idols it deserves, then today's kids must have done something good — God knows what — to have merited the Jonas Brothers." Blender gives the trio 4 out of 5 stars for its feel-good pop-rock: "Becoming a teenager is confusing and scary. The Jonases offer a friendly road map."
• Solange Knowles attempts to shake the "Beyoncé's little sister" tag with Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams, "a peppy album, rich with thumping horns, crisp percussion and light piano melodies." Despite a whiff of praise, The New York Times concludes "Solange can’t quite keep up." Allmusic disagrees, calling it "one of the year's more entertaining and easily enjoyable R&B releases," because it's "fronted by … someone who is slightly more concerned with raw emotion and clowning around than technical prowess and polished product."

After seven years of playing in a heavy metal band in Mexico City, Rodrigo Sánchez and Gabriela Quintero called it quits and then some: they decided to leave México, altogether. Unlike many other Mexicans, the couple never considering the U.S. as a destination, opting instead for the greener pastures of Ireland – or, at least, its concrete sidewalks. After long stints performing on city corners, the now acoustic power guitar duo of Rodrigo y Gabriela landed the top spot in the Irish music charts with their self-titled second album.

Their growing international popularity is due in part to their roots as metaleros from Mexico City; live, they play a fusion of rock and flamenco including covers of Metallica and Led Zeppelin songs. But it's their original songs and their ability to make them larger than life without fireworks or lasers that is the driving force behind their success.

Traces of Slayer, Megadeth and other 80's thrash bands linger in much of Rodrigo y Gabriela’s original music but they might go unnoticed by the world music fans who pick up the pair's album at an organic food store. While the raw grandeur of metal still thunders underneath their tracks, the bare instrumentation of two accoustic guitars gives their performances an almost Latin ring.

The Mexican-Irish pair are currently touring the U.S. in support of their album and will finish the year with dates in the U.K. and Ireland.

Recommended: Listen to Rodrigo and Gabriela describe their journey on PRI's The World.