admin
22 December 2023
When the band At The Drive-In called it quits, I don't think anyone could have predicted what would have risen from its ashes. On one side of the wreckage lay Sparta, for all intents and purposes an average rock band. On the other side, The Mars Volta reared its strange head. Teasing us with the brilliant, experimental EP Tremulant. Nothing however, could have prepared us for their first full-length disc, the sonic painting De-loused in the Comatorium.
De-loused is the first progressive post-hardcore concept album. But don't worry. This isn't the too-tight-to-show-feeling virtuosic masturbation that sometimes plagues Yes or Rush. If you can imagine In the Court of the Crimson King-era King Crimson infected with rabies, you might get close to the sound of this album. Sprinkle in a little more jazz, some Zeppelin and Jane's Addiction, a touch of Santana and some Pink Floyd marshmallows, and you're even closer.
While jam-packed with plenty of the signature syncopated rhythmic stops that made those prog bands of yore famous, The Mars Volta push things out of any preconceived box. One minute they're noodling away, the next they're breaking down into a sonic onslaught of noise. Never satisfied with the notes they've played, they are always reaching, searching for chords and sounds that have yet to be discovered or named.
The disc is based upon a fictionalized story written by Volta singer Cedric Bixler Zavala about the life of artist and friend Julio Venegas, who committed suicide in 1996. The song "Embroglio" from At The Drive-In's Acrobatic Tenement was the seed; a beginning, but not enough for Cedric. So the album was crafted as a more fitting tribute. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez's music twists and turns you into a thousand different states, while Cedric's vocals bounce and twirl into your mind, demanding more than just a casual listen. The lyrics beg to be deciphered and studied in a way I've not heard since Brent Oberlin's early Thought Industry records.
The dynamic De-loused is an explosion of frustration and feeling, and with it The Mars Volta have created an absolute masterpiece that lives up to the greatest of all the concept albums: The Wall, Operation: Mindcrime, Sgt. Pepper, and Quadrophenia.
VISIT THE MARS VOLTA HERE.
PURCHASE THIS OR SIMILAR ITEMS
De-loused is the first progressive post-hardcore concept album. But don't worry. This isn't the too-tight-to-show-feeling virtuosic masturbation that sometimes plagues Yes or Rush. If you can imagine In the Court of the Crimson King-era King Crimson infected with rabies, you might get close to the sound of this album. Sprinkle in a little more jazz, some Zeppelin and Jane's Addiction, a touch of Santana and some Pink Floyd marshmallows, and you're even closer.
While jam-packed with plenty of the signature syncopated rhythmic stops that made those prog bands of yore famous, The Mars Volta push things out of any preconceived box. One minute they're noodling away, the next they're breaking down into a sonic onslaught of noise. Never satisfied with the notes they've played, they are always reaching, searching for chords and sounds that have yet to be discovered or named.
The disc is based upon a fictionalized story written by Volta singer Cedric Bixler Zavala about the life of artist and friend Julio Venegas, who committed suicide in 1996. The song "Embroglio" from At The Drive-In's Acrobatic Tenement was the seed; a beginning, but not enough for Cedric. So the album was crafted as a more fitting tribute. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez's music twists and turns you into a thousand different states, while Cedric's vocals bounce and twirl into your mind, demanding more than just a casual listen. The lyrics beg to be deciphered and studied in a way I've not heard since Brent Oberlin's early Thought Industry records.
The dynamic De-loused is an explosion of frustration and feeling, and with it The Mars Volta have created an absolute masterpiece that lives up to the greatest of all the concept albums: The Wall, Operation: Mindcrime, Sgt. Pepper, and Quadrophenia.
VISIT THE MARS VOLTA HERE.
PURCHASE THIS OR SIMILAR ITEMS
artid
1529
Old Image
5_12_marsvolta.jpg
issue
vol 5 - issue 12 (aug 2003)
section
entertainmental