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The Mars Volta, Amputechture

***** Tracks that are almost terse and not in a made-up language? Fantastic, smiles Ben Thompson: the prog-punk pair have matured

Sunday August 13, 2006
The Observer

When veterans of the Mars Volta's three-hour live shows get together to compare psychological scars, they often speak of moments of dream-like isolation amid the aural carnage. People all around you will be rocking out to Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez's fearsome Tex/Mex prog-fusion ensemble in the classic manner laid down by Beavis and Butthead then there will be a short pause, and someone will say 'shall we go?' And they'll all be off home. The lightweights.

The Mars Volta's last (live) album posited a grim future in which the only justification for listening to one of their records all the way through would be that hoary old mountaineers' excuse - 'because it was there'. But this early-Roxy-Music-meets-late Led-Zep-style third studio album finds the band stepping back from total impenetrability with a pithy, eight-song, 76-minute set, guaranteed to restore the faith of those whose confidence in this grand enterprise was waning.

The opening number, 'Vicarious Atonement', not only has a title which does not appear to be in a made-up language, it also clocks in at a mere seven minutes. Have these guys gone pop or what? OK, so the next track, 'Tetragrammaton', won't give you much change out of 17 minutes. But the lovely 'Asilos Magdalena' could be Victor Jara jamming with Devendra Banhart. And my personal highlight comes towards two-thirds of the way through 'Meccamputechture', when a scourging blast of free-jazz saxophone heralds the cheery mantra 'it lacks a human pulse'.

Download: 'Asilos Magdalena'; 'Meccamputechture'; 'Day of the Bahomets'

The Mars Volta, Amputechture


***** Brani sostanzialmente limpidi e non in linguaggio inventato? Fantastico, sorride Ben Thompson: la coppia prog-punk è maturata.

Domenica 13 agosto 2006
The Observer

Quando i veterani dei live da 3 ore dei The Mars Volta si riuniscono per confrontare le cicatrici psicologiche, spesso riferiscono di momenti di isolamento pseudo-onirico nel bel mezzo della carneficina uditiva. Tutte le persone intorno a te staranno sbroccando con la paurosa miscela Tex-Mex prog-fusion di Cedric Bixler-Zavala e Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, nella classica maniera di Beavis & Butthead, quando ci sarà una breve pausa e qualcuno dirà "possiamo andare?". E loro saranno tutti a casa. I pesi leggeri.

L'ultimo album (live) dei The Mars Volta presagiva un sinistro futuro nel quale l'unica giustificazione per ascoltare uno dei loro dischi dall'inizio alla fine sarebbe stata la cara, vecchia scusa degli anziani montanari: "perchè era lì". Ma questo terzo studio album primi-Roxy-music-incontrano-gli-ultimi-Led-Zep vede la band fare un passo indietro dalla totale impenetrabilità con una succosa sequenza 8-brani-76-minuti, garantendo di ripristinare la fede di chi stava perdendo fiducia in questo spettacolare progetto.

Il numero d'apertura, Vicarious Atonement, non solo ha un titolo che sembra non essere in una lingua inventata, ma registra un tempo di soli sette minuti.
Sti ragazzi non staranno diventando pop o cosa?
OK, quindi la prossima traccia "Tetragrammaton", non vi darà alcuna tregua con i suoi 17 minuti. Ma la splendida "Asilos Magdalena" potrebbe essere Victor Jara che improvvisa con Devendra Banhart.
E la mia pietra miliare personale giunge a circa 2/3 di "Meccamputechture", quando una sferzante raffica di sax free jazz annuncia il dolce mantra "it lacks a human pulse".

Scaricate: Asilos Magdalena; Meccamputechture; Day of the Baphomets.

Rapsodia Magniloquente
I rocker neo-prog fanno ritorno dai confini dell'assurdità.

Nello sconnesso, appiccicato lavoro dell'anno scorso - Frances The Mute - i The Mars Volta hanno raggiunto ciò che appariva irraggiungibile: produrre prog-rock troppo progressivo fine a sè stesso. Anche il chitarrista ed autore Omar Rodriguez-Lopez deve aver realizzato quanto s'è lasciato trascinare lontano nella ionosfera.
Per cui in Amputechture, il terzo studio album della band, si ridimensiona - relativamente parlando - e riscopre la cruciale differenza fra il nirvana-prog e l'autoindulgenza prog.
Omar continua a riempire l'epocale Tetragrammaton e la orgogliosamente arrancante Vermicide con assoli alla Steve Howe, urla in falsetto del cantante Cedric Bixler Zavala, e immagini di inondamenti e morte superfici planetarie, ma comprende l'importanza di tornare a solide melodie.
Ovviamente, i Mars Volta sono una band che, senza alcuna ironia, intitola uno dei brani "Day of the Baphomets" e continua a trattare i tratti più orecchiabili come cose fastidiose con cui improvvisare fra i due chitarristi (Omar Rodriguez-Lopez ed il nuovamente ospite John Frusciante), che sembrano intenti in una gara a chi riesce a smanettare sulla tastiera più velocemente.
Ma per quanto tutto ciò possa risultare al di là di ogni limite, Amputechture ha poco di quella influenza thrash che ha reso così moribondo il moderno prog-rock, e le liriche impenetrabili - con riferimenti a larve ed interiora sufficienti a riempire una sceneggiatura di Rob Zombie - sono facilmente perdonabili.
Ora che i Mars Volta si sono tirati indietro dai confini dell'assurdità, pregate solo che dietro l'angolo non ci siano tronfi dischi solisti o assoli di sintetizzatore. (David Browne)

Mars Volta Share Bill, Guitarist With Red Hot Chili Peppers
Texas prog-rockers preview new material on tour
LAUREN GITLIN

Texas prog-rockers the Mars Volta will embark on a North American tour opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers this Friday in Portland, Oregon. But the bill isn't the only thing the two bands are sharing. On the Mars Volta's latest disc, Amputechture (due September 19th), guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez solicited his friend (and RHCP guitarist) John Frusciante to step in for him. "I've never thought of myself as a guitar player," explains Rodriguez-Lopez. "I don't like the guitar. I always felt like I got shafted and stuck with the instrument." This might come as a shock to fans, considering the band is perhaps best known for its moody, meandering guitar soundscapes. But with the exception of a few killer solos, Rodriguez-Lopez has stepped back from the lead-guitar position altogether, opting instead to play composer and musical director. "This is the role I've enjoyed the most -- shaping the drums, having a certain sound," he says. "I work individually with each and every band member. Once they get the notes and rhythm down, we talk about feel: 'Exactly like that, but it should sound a little more like it's underwater.'"

As the title suggests, the concept behind the album was "to cut certain things, to destroy the old in order to make way for the new," says Rodriguez-Lopez. "I would hate to have this band and to put all my energy into it and at the end of the day have us be known as 'the jam band' or 'the long song' band," he says. "There are no thirty-minute songs on this one." Still, most tracks clock in at eleven-plus minutes, and except for the surprisingly rollicking "Viscera Eyes" -- which was originally written for At the Drive-In, Rodriguez-Lopez's former band with Mars Volta vocalist Cedric Bixler -- the majority of songs adopt the same style the band built for its first two albums: grandiose, alien guitar and bass atmospherics that swirl around Bixler's nasally Robert Plant tremolo. "The band will always have a particular sound because I'm writing the music and Cedric's vocals are very distinct, but the more that we can do to steer ourselves toward new land, that's the main objective," says Rodriguez-Lopez. The album hits record stores on September 19th.

Posted Aug 08, 2006 12:01 PM

Amputechture (Gsl / Universal, 30 agosto 2006)
di Gianni Avella
Un album di maniera alla loro maniera. I Mars Volta al terzo disco: una novità iniziata a circolare grazie all’ormai massificato MySpace che ne dava un assaggio in luglio, nelle note di Viscera Eyes, brano dal riff d’aplomb zeppelliano (molto Kashmir) con attinente cantato versione Robert Plant castrato.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (che produce), Cedric Bixler in assetto classico e John Frusciante alla ritmica incluso, compongono un album che nelle parole del riccioluto singer è “un interpretazione della paura in Dio anziché la sua venerazione. Penso che sia alquanto inutile credere in Dio e Amputechture, in sostanza, è il mio personale pensiero sull’argomento”. Un concept “biblico”? Assolutamente. Un prog muscolare a piè pari tra il divino (Tetragrammaton, frippiana a tratti per il referente ebraico dell’onnipotente) e l’ambigua figura - siamo pur sempre in epoca Codice Da Vinci - di Maria Maddalena (Asilos Magdalena, ballata in spagnolo per chitarra e voce che prende in esame Magdalene Asylums, i famigerati conventi teatro di sottomissione per donne “smarrite”). Fortuna (e un pizzico di coscienza) vuole che le interminabili jam di trenta e passa minuti tipo Cassandra Gemini siano bypassate, ma buon sangue non mente e così, latinismi furiosi (Day Of The Baphomets: poteva mancare il maligno?) e arzigogolati fiati psycho-jazz (Meccamputechture) imperversano nella tracklist.

Con il funambolico drummer Jon Theodore al capolinea (dal prossimo disco cederà le bacchette Blake Fleming), i Mars Volta superano il prolisso Frances The Mute. Se il 6.0 è politico – il 6.6 quasi satanico –, qui urge un (7.0/10) teologico.

The Mars Volta are continual contenders for the mantle of most experimental high-profile metal group, along with System of a Down, an artist they've toured with but who usually sell 20 times more records. Mars Volta aren't as popular, not because their riffs are less memorable or innovative but because their cycle of musical buildup and release, although similarly jarring, can last at least 20 minutes instead of System's two. (It's the difference between having a background in acid rock and having one in thrash.) While the early reports on third album Amputechture commented that the duo of Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez had learned a few lessons about silence and forsaken the concept album, don't believe it. The album is little different than their two previous atom bombs, De-Loused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute — tense and anxious, continually pushing the boundaries of extreme production, with long periods of dynamics that rise ever higher, followed by an explosion of release (usually screaming hard rock with storms of atonal brass and horns). The album opens with "Vicarious Atonement," five minutes of spectral effects and piercing guitar that gets a boost at the beginning of the next track, "Tetragrammaton," and then blooms into full riffing glory after a few more minutes (and they're still nowhere near the end of the 16-minute track). John Frusciante, eccentric genius from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, returns on guitar, but Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez exert so much control over the sound of Mars Volta that Frusciante makes virtually no individual impression on this record, although most of the guitar work is his. (Granted, his presence leaves Rodriguez-Lopez open for more intricate work on production.) The Mars Volta is one of the most intriguing bands in rock, but their huge musical power is often deflected by Bixler-Zavala's conceptual themes (which are difficult to follow, but also, perversely, impossible to ignore) and blitzkrieg dynamics that are either dialed down to one or up to ten (but rarely in-between).

The Mars Volta
Amputechture
[GSL/Universal; 2006]
Rating: 3.5


The Mars Volta's piss-soaked indulgence often pushes critics to similarly bombastic, mouth-foaming performances. It's understandable. The boys have created an oeuvre that, while technically adventurous, is more or less a soulless hodgepodge of ADD prog trope noodles. That said, I carefully cross my heart at the news of each release, hoping that approaching these guys with an open mind will unearth the pleasures that make bong-toting college boys and Total Guitar subscribers purr. But hard as I tried (again), Amputechture tested, bent, and eventually broke me: Synths lap, strings weep soppingly, ham-fisted fingers tap, time signatures flash, and the amphetamine Beat poetry... is amphetamine Beat poetry.

Now, I dig indulgence when it's done well (see: Finnegans Wake, that skinny guy who wins all the hot-dog eating contests), and what got me through multiple listens of Frances the Mute was the album's overall ludicrousness, that weirdo King Crimson corn-dogging. I enjoyed some of the vocal lines, and it had an intriguing concept-- characters flesh-out from found objects-- but the endless boogie eventually flatlined. It wasn't good rock music, but it was fun in a beer-helmet sorta way. But unless you do keg stands for a living, party tricks usually only work once. To the band's credit, at least they didn't aim for another classic-rock crapper like Frances's "The Widow"-- if your raison d'être is sitcom-length epics, why plop in that one radio-ready single?

Here, the closest the Mars Volta come to a stadium-sized anthem on is opener "Vicarious Atonement", in which slow-drip Led Zeppelin histrionics and drama-queen guitar wanks waddle over space ambiance, modem sounds, piano swirls, and free-jazzercise horns. The effect? Climbing a mountain with a noodling Sam Ash balladeer. (Actually, it's probably John Frusciante, who plays guitar on just about every track here.) Of course, the 7+ minute "Been Caught Stealin'"-on-DXM shower ballad could've been trimmed by three minutes, but that's not a bad percentage for these guys.

As is illustrated by the 17-minute "Tetragrammaton". The move from "Vicarious Atonement"'s saxophone bleats and Cedric Bixler-Zavala's mutant whine to the hyperspeed Dream Theater schlep is nice enough: The track's first few minutes show promise, but before long it's veered off into unlistenable, meth-addled Rich Little territory. "Tetragrammaton", of course, is the Hebrew name for God, but seriously, there's no reason to try to squeeze the entire dude into one track. How many scales can a person take? Leave the room, come back, go to sleep, take a walk: They're still at it.

This isn't to say Amputechture is without redemption: "Vermicide" has a couple mellow and pretty guitar parts; actually, though, that's snuffed by the word "sacrosanct," heady ricocheting vocal effect, and late-period funk spunk. Heady hand drums, acoustic guitar flumes, and drifty gleams at "Asilos Magdalena"'s opening are promising, but a quivering Cedric gets weepy on us. My guess: Mary Magdalene's pissed at Jesus for not taking her with him. Then I thought of Devendra Banhart for a second, before wiping off my windshield. The religious imagery's knee-deep in each track: "Viscera Eye" rages about "a crown of maggots" and "the border we're watching." Somewhere Fred Durst nods along with a copy of Dharma Bums in his back pocket.

The demonizing, idol-worshipping "Day of the Baphomets" opens with and sustains the most energy, but then comes a number of unnecessary shifts, including fun-house vocal effects and wavy gravy Lynchian midget sounds. The song features a legitimately kinetic vocal turn-- "Poachers in your home/ Poachers in your home"-- that echoes Nation of Ulysses, but my finger's still off a few inches.

None of this is surprsing: It's the Mars Volta's third proper album and a blizzard of onanism is expected-- to quite a few people, it'll be highly anticipated. Hell, it even had me interested: This is ex-At the Drive In bassist Paul Hinojos' first studio stint with the band after he started touring with them in 2005. Maybe he'd turn back the clock and force his comrades to look in the mirror and see how far they've strayed off course? Sadly not. Which reminds me: Bixler-Zavala and Volta keyboardist Ikey Owens guest on Mastodon's new Blood Mountain album. Maybe they'll brainwash Atlanta's finest metal band into this kinda bullshit so the world can celebrate the crushing loss of two great bands together.

-Brandon Stosuy, September 12, 2006