The Mars Volta is by far the most bizarre and insane musical experience of the past twenty years. Yet the Mars Volta is also one of the most talented and innovative bands of the past twenty years…for some people. The Mars Volta is an acquired taste, one you either get or you don’t, but if you do have that acquired taste, the Mars Volta can be one of the greatest experiences you will ever have. It stands to reason then that the Mars Volta’s live show would be in the same vein.
Scabdates is the Mars Volta’s first live album and with it they are struggling to give the best representation of their live show as possible. I can tell you, honestly, that it is a very truthful representation. Scabdates does its best to give someone who has never heard the band’s live show an idea of what it is like. The 73-minute album is a pretty good album but the fact that it is broken up into 12 tracks somewhat disrupts the flow of the concert in the album as a Mars Volta concert is a continuous thing that has a great indescribable flow. The decision to divide the album into 12 sections may alienate some hardcore Mars Volta fans but it does make the album more accessible to the casual Mars Volta listener and the newcomer who has never heard them.
The accessibility, though, refers only to the time of the songs. Such songs as Cicatriz and Caviglia don’t suddenly become pop songs; they are still the drugged out experimental songs they were meant to be. The bizarre spasms of music that the band spurts out at random moments are still there, a feat few other bands could pull off. The occasional incoherent vocals of Cedric Bixler-Zavala remain as well. There is no question that the Mars Volta is not nearly for everyone.
Thanks to the polished and smooth production that the album gets, the album comes off cleaner than any Mars Volta show would. The production even helps certain Volta things that wouldn’t normally flow well in a show to flow perfectly. As you listen to the album, you are instantly able to hear all the melodies, instrumentals, vocals, and music samples that would easily get lost in the mix of an actual Mars Volta show.
A Mars Volta show is, essentially, a handful of songs buried under a mess of instrumental jams, musical samples, and incoherent vocals that are all locked into a flow unlike most bands’ live shows. It is an experience that one must experience but for those who can’t get there yet, this will do for now. While some of the coarseness and flow of the show gets lost under the production and track break-ups, most of it remains. The essence of the Mars Volta live show remains and in that show lays a successful album. |