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http://www.qprime.com/bands/themarsvolta.phpFor The Mars Volta's brand new fifth album Octahedron, however, Omar adopted an oblique and entirely new strategy, one he'd never tried before in the group's career. Having cut the basic tracks for this new album, instead of retreating to the studio to tinker endlessly with the songs and recordings, he chose to step away. Instead of feverishly adulterating the tapes with the mosaic of overdubs and FX that have typically aided Omar in realizing his concepts, he chose instead to polish and refine what he had, to hold back on every bell and every whistle. The result is, he says, the first of his albums that he can listen to for pleasure. It is also an album that distils all of the energy, all of the furious invention that characterises music with a clarity they've never before achieved. In keeping with this spirit, Omar pared the band down to a 6-piece lineup, asking Hinojos and Terrazas to leave, both of whom did so amicably.
"It was really challenging, to hold back," he smiles. "To add many layers, or an instrumental freakout section here or there, began to feel predictable to me, so I started putting restraints on myself, saying no, you aren't going to add 97 extra parts to this song. I reined it in, and kept it to the core of what those songs were."
Octahedron is an album heady with the emotion and high-drama that has always been The Mars Volta's trademark, their newfound simplicity and focus delivering some of the most immediate and powerful songs in their discography. Lyrically, Cedric employed 'disappearance' as a loose theme, inspired by the culture of kidnapping that has latterly infected the group's current home of Mexico, by the mysterious disappearances that populate the library of urban myth, and the way emotions - even the strongest, purest emotions - can mysteriously, but entirely, ebb away.
The album opens with the tender ache of "Since We've Been Wrong," Cedric's keening vocal establishing a mood that's deeply blue, powerfully melancholic, a suckerpunch that hits every bit as hard as Octahedron's unashamed rockers (the gleaming futuristic funk of "Teflon," the tense chase-music of "Cotopaxi"). Pulling back from the full-tilt experimentation of previous releases, Octahedron invests its energies in Omar's gift for songcraft, for swooning guitar runs of high tension and emotive power (closer "Luciforms"' epic riffage), for the nagging hooks and choked melodies that wreath the churning rhythms of "Desperate Graves." "For me, all that's important is if something moves you or not," explains Omar. "I've never tried to be tricky, to be complicated; if it gives me goosebumps, I'll use it. If it's striking, if it hits me as a listener, that's all that matters to me."
Ultimately, the album is another in a series of testaments to Omar and Cedric's unassailable faith in following their muse in whichever direction it takes them; thus far the journey's been the ride of the creative lifetime, and they see no sense it second-guessing it yet, especially not when it delivers so pointedly powerful a record as Octahedron.
"The only reason we even have a fanbase is because I've stayed true to my instincts," nods Omar. "We've not tried to repeat previous successes to make them happy, we've stayed true to ourselves, and made the music that we want to make, and that's what they respond to. They can sense this is something really pure." And on Octahedron, perhaps purer than ever.
