The Mars
Volta
by Dan Grote
Once upon a time there was a band of critics’
darlings called At the Drive-In who became such an alt-rock sensation that
they bankrupted their record label (the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal Records),
forced said label’s only other artist back onto the streets (Scapegoat
Wax, who later landed at Hollywood Records with a retread of his Grand
Royal album), and imploded on itself, splitting into two separate bands.
One of those bands, Sparta, who released their debut last summer, took
ATDI’s politically charged art-screamo and added more melody and hookiness,
while the other band, the Mars Volta, made up of the ATDI’s two afro-ed
members, went to the other end of the spectrum and released an instrumental-heavy
prog concept album that is more of a mind-blower than a tune factory.
Written predominantly by Omar Rodriguez
and sung by Cedric Bixler, whose voice now occasionally emulates the nasally
warble of prog godfather Geddy Lee, Deloused in the Comatorium continues
the ATDI tradition of using big words and medical terminology to make charged
statements. The verse-chorus-verse formula is tossed out the window in
favor of refrains that take place between long stretches of Latin, jazz,
and progressive instrumental solos that are sometimes so long you forget
the track hasn’t changed in over ten minutes. Such is the case especially
with “Cicatriz Esp,” which bookends a series of spacey, atmospheric musical
interludes between pronouncements of “I’m defective.”
Predominantly a heavy album, there is only
one laid-back track in the ten, “Televators;” however, even that song does
not escape the album’s intellectual leaning, as it is probably the only
song anyone will ever hear containing the phrase “auto de fey,” a term
which refers to the executions of the Spanish Inquisition. Much of the
Mars Volta’s music can expand your vocabulary, from the opening lyric of
“Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt”: “You must have been phlegmatic in stature,”
to the song titles themselves, which run from big-word English to Spanish
(“Tira me a las Aranas”), to… well… I’m really not sure what “Son et Lumiere”
is. Maybe French or Latin?
VERDICT: The Mars Volta will either make
you feel really smart or really stupid depending on how highly you think
of your own brain power. Most people won’t catch the big words, but everybody
can enjoy how the album progresses musically. In the battle of the ATDI
stars, the Mars Volta make Sparta sound like the Backstreet Boys.
CD Info
The Mars
Volta - Deloused In The Comatorium
Label: Gold
Standard Labs/Universal
Rating: 
Tracks:
Son Et Lumiere
Inertiatic ESP
Roulette Dares (This Is The Haunt)
Tira Me A Las Aranas
Drunkship Of Lanterns
Eriatarka
Cicatriz ESP
This Apparatus Mus Be Unearthed
Televators
Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt |
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