mars volta?

So I guess I like this band after all. Saw the video for "Wax Simulacra" and holy shit!!! SO good! I wish all their stuff was this melodic (and brief). What else should I search from the discography, not being the most patient, prog-friendly dude?

Goliath!

not being the most patient, prog-friendly dude?

Uh, pretty much stick with the debut EP and the "Wax Simulacra" single then. Everything else is wanky, progtastic. Honestly though, the new album is pretty good - at least as far as these guys go. The lyrics are still horrifyingly bad, but there's some pretty cool guitar work (haven't figured out yet just how much is thanks to Frusciante) and the drumming is pretty spectacular in parts.

I saw these guys last month and they kicked all kinds of ass. The songs are generally pretty long but they didn't wear me out live - which is unusual. The drummer was amazing too. It's been a while since i've been to a show where the band put on a bonafied rock show (microphone swinging, scissor kicking, that kind of stuff). My own lameness is mostly to blame for that.

I can't stand these guys -- the records (the first two, at least, haven't heard the others) and the live show, both. A friend played 'em for me and it was just torture. Live show was, yes, masturbatory. No other word for it. In a word -- absolutelyfuckingawful.

New album in June?

http://blog.thecomatorium.com/?p=64

(that's one month after their "El Grupo Nuevo Omar Rodriguez Lopez" album with Hella)

Can anyone speak up for these guys? I quite liked ATDI and I find the idea of the Mars Volta perpetually intriguing but don't think I've ever heard any of their music. But I'm in a rock mood right now and I'm always down for ludicrous prog self-indulgence. So are any of their records actually worth taking the time to hear?

De-loused is worth hearing for comedy value. It's so-bad-it's-good.

And you can get your 'ludicrous prog self-indulgence' from plenty better, I will say.

Frances The Mute is genuinely good and exciting, its opening track is the best thing they've done

Amputechture is really underrated - Tetragrammaton is absolutely fucking insane, and great, and 17 minutes long

First album is otoh *OVERrated* and you should probably avoid it, Cicatriz ESP excepted (the longest and conversely easiest-to-listen-to song)

Davek's last post is thoroughly OTM though

dolls wreck the minced meat of pupils
cast in oblong arms length
the hooks have been picking their scabs
where wolves hide in the company of men

haha ok

Show me some other good contemporary heavy rock bands. I like QOTSA, for example. And Deftones. Stuff like that

admrl, sorry if this is weird/creepy but apparently you went to UCS. Paulatim! I was 2001-2008.

Oceansize finally get a thread of their own...C/D?
Chrome Hoof
Like Jimi Hendrix Fucking Black Sabbath With King Crimson (New Bushman's Revenge Album On Rune Grammofon)
quasi - c/d s/d

^^^all released very good albums last year

Rune Gramafon!

No Davek, that's not creepy. I did go to UCS. Quite a while before you though (and for a much shorter time). I hated it, but I hope you had fun!

Sorry to hear that you hated it :( It certainly wasn't 100% joy for me..

Oh it's fine, I made a lot of great friends (still my best friends, in fact) and it was aaaages ago - I left in '96! Now I feel old

sorry - 94!!!!

bunch of mars volta threads out there

anyway i like the new album a lot so far

i think the opener is pretty bad, but the run from dyslexicon thru in absentia is pretty great! in absentia being the highlight of the album for me

probably going to pick this up tonight, i've heard really encouraging things so far. but i'm also a guy who has heard double-digits worth of ORL solo stuff.

so this gets a little goopy toward the end!

but whatever, it's 2012 and i sort of dig a mars volta record

Mars Volta = officially over. Cedric Bixler Zavala on Twitter tonight:

Thank u 2 all VOLTA fans u deserved more especially after the way u rooted for us on this album. I tried my hardest to keep it going (cont-)

But Bosnian Rainbows was what we all got instead. I can't sit here and pretend any more. I no longer am a member of Mars Volta. (cont-)

I honestly thank all of you for buying our records and coming to our shows. You guys were a blast to play in front of

We could never had done it with out you. My dream was to get us to the point were Jon Theodore and Ikey Owens came back but sadly it's over

Thank u a million times over for ever giving a fuck about our band

For the record I tried my hardest to get a full scale North American tour going for Noctourniquet but Omar did not want to.

I guess a break from mars volta means starting another band and ignoring all the support the fans gave us. I tried my hardest guys

All I can do is move forward with my music and just be happy that mars volta ever happened at all. God Damn we had a blast. Thank u again

I just feel really guilty for not even really saying the truth because a hiatus is just an insult to the fans

To all our fans all over the world thank you for giving a fuck. You all ruled! I don't think ill ever hear a fist full of dollars the same

My record will see the light of day soon and I'm excited because it sounds nothing like my previous endeavors.

And no I'm not joking about any of this, I owe it 2 u guys to all fans to be serious about this

Thank u to all past members who helped Volta along as well. we blasted through like a comet and left our mark!

If u ever see me in person and want to know why I'll tell u my story

Please just be happy that it happened at all remember all the opposition we were met with for just starting a new band back in 2001.

they're gonna play coachella weekend 2 this year

so i guess sparta 'won'

DONE!

"My dream was to get us to the point were Jon Theodore and Ikey Owens came back"

Jesus, if he knew that was the best lineup he shouldn't have kept going that long.

last track on noctourniquet is one of the best mars volta songs

but i've been listening to the first two sparta records for a week and those things are secretly incredible imo

Honestly the very first Mars Volta show I saw w/ a female bassist, Ikey & Jon is still among the best show I've seen. It was basically King Crimson jamming On The Corner in a small club blowing hardcore kids minds. I never really listened to them on record but that show was awesome.

really sad, they were great until around 09 or so, but i think they could've made another great record and kept touring until they dropped. i wrote about the first time i saw them: http://www.splicetoday.com/music/the-mars-volta-r-i-p/

http://www.llss.tv/bosnianrainbows.html

Interesting piece here: Cedric on why he stopped smoking pot.

answer: "i became a scientologist"

dunno if its upthread but there's a podcast from the last year where cedric talks about the last ATDI usa tour. one of their friends in el paso had terminal cancer and was about to die, so he gave the band and their crew his "death stash" - trunks full of heavy duty opiates. sorta strange considering they still performed like they were made of 100% crack cocaine

this explains a LOT. i was checking out some of their later albums and i couldn't believe how godawful they sounded. who listens to that mess?

the actual last atdi tour was a dumb reunion where they played coachella and sucked real bad and omar barely moved bcuz his mom just died and cedric was a new scientologist so he was being weird.

i saw them in 2003 or something, cedric's hair was super crazy, it was post-afro when he just let it grow and he was just this shrieking ball of hair onstage, it was very beautiful

maybe kind of like this but in my memory it was much longer

http://clubpix.kingsnake.com/data/8248MarsVolta_0254-med.JPG

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/the-mars-volta-announces-18-lp-box-set-unreleased-material-included/

full disclosure: I wrote the liner notes for this.

Can you explain how they got 18 LPs out of it? They only had six studio albums, five of which would be double LP length, then there's the EP, then an album of outtakes...that only adds up to 13 pieces of vinyl to me.

I've not seen a finished copy yet so I'm not sure, but Deloused was 2LP, Frances The Mute was 3LP (last LP 1-sided with etching on flip side), Amputechture was 2LP, Bedlam was 2LP, Octahedron was 2LP and Noctourniquet was 2LP, so that's 13 LPs, plus one disk for the EP, plus two for Landscape Tantrums, the unreleased first take of Deloused, plus a disk each for Plague and Eunuch, so I think that's how they get to 18LP.

Frances The Mute was 3LP (last LP 1-sided with etching on flip side)

This is interesting to me, because it sounds like they may have added the song "Frances the Mute" to the album proper. Not "spend $500 on a vinyl box set when I don't even own a turntable" interesting, but interesting nonetheless. Congrats on the liner note gig, too, btw. I'd like to write more liner notes myself.

Thanks - I've been doing more and more sleevenotes during lockdown, and they're a lot of fun. The artists actually want to get the stories behind their work on the record, and enjoy the fact they have final word on what reaches the page (and I'm fine with that, tbh), though there isn't a single one of them that hasn't bulldozed through every deadline in sight as the artists prevaricate over the placement of every punctuation mark (and I'm fine with that too, tbh, as I appreciate that level of exactitude).

would buy a TMV book if you fancy expanding it

watch this space...

maybe some tiny times?

It's going to be a full pop album isn't it. Exciting!

Good read, i thought.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/aug/12/the-mars-volta-the-most-revolutionary-thing-we-could-do-was-to-make-a-pop-record

Very much so. Excited!

Looking forward to reading that.

Saw that the running time for the new one is only 44 minutes, isn't that a relative EP for these guys?

The songs are short - song-length, you might say. But they are brilliant. It's a wonderful album, the pop album they've been threatening since at least before Octahedron, a really brave record that pays off, big time.

Yeah, I was being flip, I'm still super excited for this record. Just surprised to see the lack of epics on the tracklist.

The most revolutionary thing we could do was to make a pop record

haven't read the article yet but god this is such a tired trope

You're just questioning true art maaaaaaan.

"Vinculum in the Cyclosphere Pt. 1 (f. Carly Rae Jepsen)"

Would listen. What's some good prog-pop?

The most revolutionary thing we could do was to walk in lockstep with all critical trends

What's some good prog-pop?

― dow, Friday, 12 August 2022 19:01 (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

basically just scour my EOY ballots tbh

As for TMV, whether this is a crass move or an inspired one depends entirely on the execution

The most revolutionary thing we could do was to walk in lockstep with all critical trends

― marcel the shell with swag on (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, August 12, 2022 3:18 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

tough but fair

so critical trends=going pop?

The Big Time(s)!

New York Times, September 2022. pic.twitter.com/mXgxCflFQh

— THE MARS VOLTA (@themarsvolta) September 8, 2022

hmmmm

neither as bad as some are saying nor as good as i was hoping

the preview songs are generally the stronger moments

sure sounds like late-period Beck for something that's about escaping the Church, lads

the preview songs are generally the stronger moments

Ominous sign given that I didn't like any of the singles (different from not liking any of the videos; those were great).

Haven't heard the whole thing yet, but this really seems like it would have been better as a non-TMV album, maybe another Antemasque or something.

Yeah, I don't think I needed to hear Cedric Bixler-Zavala sing his usual falsetto nonsense over watered-down alt-R&B. I don't think *anyone* needed to hear that, frankly.

i dig this

i did not know travis barker was briefly in antemasque, that is a completely baffling combination that i can only imagine would have resulted in the worst music ever? idk

amputechture is their best album y/y?

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, November 9, 2021 2:09 PM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

god i'm so fucking right

I don't hate this new one? It's a big departure, but also not? It almost sounds like short form pop songs made out of those brief linking interludes from their old prog epics.

The more I listen to it, the more I kinda love it

It's my favourite album of the year. The YouTubes I've seen from the show have been great, too. Cedric's voice is really strong, and deft.

I've been surprised to see how few songs off the new album they've been playing. I mean, I get it, but I figured they might give it more airtime.

album is actually very very good

an album of jagged art-rock miniatures

def the most interesting thing they've made since the first three records

new record didn't immediately grab me but the clips I've seen of the live shows definitely sold me on it, very good indeed, kind of regret not taking a road trip to Seattle to hear it in person, have seen them twice before in sports arenas and I think a theater is definitely where you want to be for a mars volta show

my favourite album of 2022. Vigil is a stunning song.

Huge fan of the first three Mars Volta albums. The new one makes a strong EP. Still have some great memories from the De-Loused and Frances tours back in the day.

havent listent to this group since bedlam but this new one is great, and very different, like a more rockin dirty projectors idk

So an acoustic version of the new album came out today and...nobody gives a shit?

Oh, I didn't know it was out - it's excellent, though.

Lots of albums come out and people don't give a shit about most of them. I'll check it out though

Lots of albums come out and people don't give a shit about most of them.

True, but there were no reviews posted on any of the major music sites. Brief news items back in March when the album was announced, but this week, nothing. Seemed surprising to me.

it’s an acoustic version of a record that already came out

sometimes these get covered and sometimes they don’t idk, i’m not particularly interested

Thanks for the head's up on this. I really liked the album and had no idea they'd released an acoustic version. Listening now and it sounds exactly like you'd expect, but it's also really nice to hear the songs in this context.

Whoever's doing PR on this is sleeping on the job. I guess it got lost in the shuffle of Record Store Day. Incidentally, I just learned there was also a Mars Volta RSD release (not this).

I forgot this was coming out, but tbh it's not exactly near the top of my "must check out" list and I even say that as someone who has everything else they've put out.

Ok so the new album. There's moments of greatness for sure, but my main gripes are:

Too much Cedric. The dude never stops singing the whole goddamn things. There barely any breathing space. No air. It's just a guy singing at me nonstop.

Not enough Omar. There are like no guitars on the thing. I like guitars and stuff.

Won't be returning to it very often. Last song might be my fav tho.

ok i take it back, i had no idea this acoustic version of the s/t would be jazz volta!!! it’s gorgeous

huh, well Brad's endorsement certainly has my more curious than anything else I've read about it so far...

It's great. Omar took spare takes of Cedric's vocals to Puerto Rico after finishing the s/t album, ten reorchestrated them for acoustic instruments, setting them to specific Latin rhythms. It's subtly ambitious - Omar's roots in tradition Latin music have been at the heart of all TMV's stuff, and have only become more explicit in recent years, and this album is a triumph in that particular mission. He told me he sees it as being a quietly political album, too. They're some of my favourite TMV songs, and these versions are excellent.

great, the same album in completely different arrangements is gonna be in my top five of the year two years in a row

De-Loused in the Comatorium turns 20 tomorrow. I wrote about it for Stereogum.