Coming off the kind of recognition and all-around success At-The-Drive-In had achieved with the critically lauded Relationship of Command, it was difficult to fathom why they would decide to disband and start all over again. Their major label debut was unanimously praised as the album to get by fans and critics alike and many who had experienced their live show were touting them as one of the more promising bands worthy of filling the void left by such great acts as Rage Against the Machine and Smashing Pumpkins. I mean, hadn’t ATDI worked so hard year after year endlessly touring in support of all those indie releases just to get to this point?
Little of us knew about all the years ATDI had endured on the road prior to their Royal Crown debut or that the band had grown tired of the ATDI blueprint their fans were familiar with. By the end of another drawn out tour, road-weary and musically restless, the band’s lifespan had run its course.
It was so that former ATDI members, guitarist Omar Rodriguez and vocalist Cedric Bixler, both of whom made up the manic core of what made ATDI so exhilarating, formed Mars Volta, a genre defying free-for-all of musical outer-worldliness and walloping emotional dynamics.
Last year, the group released the cliff-hanging teaser EP, Tremulant, brazenly unfurling to their fan base a fantastically strange sound that favors transcendent aspirations over radio-ready designs. Incredibly, in just three songs, the band had established what is now unmistakably the Mars Volta sound and left no doubt as to their new direction. With so little, this unbearable tease of an EP left many of us even more excited then we were before we even had a clue what they were up to.
Then the anticipation for a full-length debut built astronomically when we got news that legendary producer Rick Rubin had signed on to produce it. And then things got even better when we learned they had recruited “Flea” from the universally adored Red Hot Chili Peppers to play bass on the record.
Great expectations have been bestowed on their debut LP, De-Loused in the Comatorium. It is this humble scribe’s fortune to announce that not only have we found the next great band of our era but also that the music scene itself serves to profit from this daringly innovative rethink.
From the outset we know that this is more than an auditory experience…that irrepressible imagery will emerge without your invitation in this theater of the mind. “Son Et Lumiere” opens the album with the thinly veiled threat of a cosmic storm. Over this rumbling oscillation comes the noisy transmission of Cedric’s voice, calling us in, granting us temporary sanctuary where drums let out controlled spasms of aggression and a calculating piano blinks out our dial-up.
“Inertiatic” smash cuts into the panorama, millennium thrust-like, undeterred by the debris, with an unbridled, frenetically charged disdain for the madness outside. Cedric’s cathartic whelps give way periodically to a hyper-cycling riff that crackles like an electric current warning of its self-determination. Once satisfied with its own prowess, the lightning bolts are put away and the song relaxes into a peaceful sleep: a docile universe, for now at least. Yeah, sure, I went a little overboard with the visuals but as you’ll find for yourself, that’s the kind of feeling you get when listening to these guys.
On “Haunt of Roulette Dares” we get a masterful weaving of astro-surfing guitars, dub blares, drifting ambience, and down-tempo harmonic whisperings that blast off into tumbling drum frenzies, soaring vocal arrangements, Sly and the Family Stone-like fender stabs and rip-roaring riffs. In those 7 minutes, I’m sure they’ve managed to stretch the song into every effective place possible.
“Drunkship Lanterns” sounds like some sort of accelerated snake dance as ecstatic tribal drums pulsate while guitars hiss and sends flames careening off of cave walls. Cedric reverberantly calls out “Is Anybody There?” lifting us out into the great dark expanse. The bass playing on this song is absolutely superb.
It’s quite eerie that there’d be what feels like an electric church eulogy on the album called “Televators” given to band friend friend Julio Venegas, and recent death of band member Jim Ward. As Cedric mourns we sense that he does so with the weight of his existence. The man’s talent is of an elusive, undeniable quality.
Other highlights include the dashing “This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed” and timeless “Eriatarka.”
De-Loused in the Comatorium dares to be pretentious, worry-free that people won’t get it. Yes, Mars Volta have indulged themselves, but unlike some obnoxious guitarist who noodles on and on for a whole album there’s a hopeful, youthful spirit that doesn’t really want to alienate people; there’s some real soul and caustic energy in this, not just some vain exercise in technique.
With a cinematic sensibility, the LP is strongly visceral and does wonderful justice in translating that awing live presence they have. People may be reluctant to crack each song’s code as the lyrics, much like some David Lynch picture, seem to be non-sensical, but that should not deter people from the overall emotive experience. Word-of-mouth will spread once they hit the road this summer with people fiending for more shows and more tours. With this release they’ll be hailed as this century’s best offering thus far. |