Review Summary: The Mars Volta try to do too much with too little in this live release that fails to capture their true potential and ability.
Ah, the Mars Volta live performance. Quite possibly one of the most arguable aspects of the band and second only to whether they are a group of talented musicians or simply a randomized onslaught of
wankery. Depending on what side of the fence you are on, such an experience will leave the listener hailing the non-stop charade or... well,
cursing the non-stop charade of the prog-rockers. My exposure to the live show has shown me skinny fists thrust enthusiastically toward the stage throughout entire "jam" durations as well as shrugging shoulders from the unenthused enduring the same sentence. In all fairness to both parties it is safe to say that, as illustrated by their live release
Scab Dates, these guys are a little bit of both.
Fresh off of the release of
Frances the Mute, my hopes were high from the very mentioning of a live Volta disc. In my eagerness, I looked past the absence of any tracks from the sophomore album but also geeked at the inclusion of a few song titles I did not immediately recognize. However, a single listen reveals in over an hour that the record truly only offers three separate songs throughout the whole ordeal. The opening
Abrasions Mount the Timpani is no more than a introductory track to
Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt. The remaining two,
Caviglia and
Haruspex serve only as interludes to segue between the actual songs, the latter of which is mostly an extended wind up in preparation for
Cicatriz.
Now, while I am admittedly a sucker for extended live versions of songs, quick math will indicate that close to two-thirds of the album is consumed by a multi-track performance of Cicatriz. The greatest saving grace to all of this is the explosive execution that gets put through the speakers here, but even that energy embarks on a brief hiatus before the ending has come. Despite this, the entire listen offers an abundance of the signature excess that has come to define the Mars Volta and, if this is your bag, chances are you'll end up relishing in it.
The live interpretations of the (actual) songs themselves are quite impressive and help to dissolve my confusion and consequent frustration over the lack of material. Once it is finally underway, after about three minutes of fiddling crescendo,
Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt explodes out of the gates. Significantly more raw and noisy than its studio take, it ventures as it should sans a bass solo and into the disarray that makes up the ending portions of the original. Of course, the performance veers suddenly as the riff heavy
Gust of Mutts "unveils" and acts as the first extension of the song. It isn't until
And Ghosted Pouts, the third installment of
Take the Veil... when the detour finds its climax with Cedric's screeching voice highlighting a second barrage of said riffage. Thankfully, and tastefully, the Volta groove back into what was abandoned before
Gust of Mutts to conclude the song.
The second real offering here comes in the form of
Concertina, not only the outstanding track on the disc but perhaps one of the strongest within the discography. Taken from the
Tremulant EP, the live performance of
Concertina surpasses its original by great lengths if only in the approach alone. Noticeably more up-tempo, undeniably more active, and one of the few instances in the disc where Cedric's vocals are
far more impressive than the wavering whines left on the demo debut. Among the things right with the track lies in the smaller details, which amount to a great results. The sax toward the end of the song is tasteful and doesn't feel messy at all, the entire band seems consistently driven and tight throughout, and even Omar's guitar playing/wanking is left to a minimum here. Listening to this performance it is clear to see that this is the level of play that was intended to be captured in this recording.
How strange then that the remaining tracks left from the performance act almost in direct contradiction to the previous. Even in its meandering,
Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt was kept from straying too far for its own good and
Concertina stood as the model example of what a live disc should consist of. However, for the next and final forty-five minutes of the disc the Volta decide to take the listener on an extended tour of
Cicatriz ESP... but not all of it is bad, mind you. In fact it opens up just as the album does: strong and hard hitting but by doing justice to the original for at least a few moments.
However, by
Cicatriz: Part I the "song" has unfolded into a mellow groove with ad-lib lyrics. Yet, even in the track's two or so minutes it manages to swell into a jam and again retreat back into another quiet section riding Omar's guitar at the start of
Cicatriz: Part II. You get the idea here. The "second" portion to this "song" delves deep into the alleged aimless wankery that balances between frantic picking and noisy swells. By the time
Cicatriz: Part IV comes around the band has come back around in full force but the mayhem, whether enjoyable or not, is masked in a series of overdubbed audio. Randomized clips of conversation in Spanish, sped up/slowed down tape, a mariachi band, people shooting the shit... you name it, it might be there. Through the first half of the twenty-minute conclusion the best glimpse of the chaos going on back at the live show is the occasional interweaving of the two.
At about the ten minute mark in the last track is when the nonsense dissipates and the live performance is brought back to the forefront, only to diminish into a whisper right away. The moments left become a quiet, spacey expanse of slight volume swells, Cedric's hushed ramblings, and a modest guitar effects demonstration a la Omar. The ironic thing isn't that in the very last (three) minutes the band bring things back around but that the most energetic, straightforward example of Cicatriz comes only now in its waning conclusion.
Don't get me wrong,
Scab Dates offers some great moments before it expires and, even though the record itself seems to have the attention span of a stapler, it is enjoyable from start to... well... to somewhere in
Cicatriz. While I hate to accredit any fault to one specific aspect of the album, the obscenely excessive extension of the final song is a taxing listen and it doesn't help much that it absorbs the majority of the entire performance. Even with only the three real songs here, if one were to cut down the bulk of
Cicatriz it would greatly improve the record as a whole. Perhaps then there would have even been the possibility to add another song into the set (how different things would be if say
Televators or
Drunkship of Lanterns were fit somewhere along the way). Unfortunately this is not the case and, despite the always energetic delivery of the Mars Volta's live performance, the latter half of this disc largely hinders one's ability to enjoy it.
Recommended Tracks:
Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt
Concertina
Cicatriz: Part I
