Review Summary: So, John McLaughlin, a Punk Rocker, and a rabid coyote walk into the El Paso desert hoping to indulge in a few buttons of peyote. Consider this album the punch-line to that joke.
Time can have a crippling effect on someone. Your skin sags, your energy levels drop to all time lows, your joints give out, and overall, you can’t take the same abuse you use to. Thus became the fate of The Mars Volta, once a band that pioneered a rarely traversed realm of progressive rock (spastic, jazz influenced heavy prog the likes of which have only
truly been mastered by King Crimson circa 1973-74, or, the early releases of the Mahavishnu Orchestra) that became a band which, ironically enough, sunk under the weight of tired prog-rock clichés; aimless and seemingly endless jams, ambient experiments that leave little impression, and unjustified pretension (thus the fate of nearly every prog group). At least before they went under they left us with their one “masterpiece” (that is, if you believe they deserve at least one masterpiece under their tight waisted belts),
“De-loused in the Comatorium”, an album so ferocious and complex that only two pretentious Mexi-Somethings high on speed would have the nerves to create it. Intrigued yet?
It’s easy to see the logical progression from
“Relationship of Command” (the seminal final release by At the Drive-In, Omar Rodriquez Lopez’s and Cedric Bixler Zavala’s previous band) to this debut. Where
“Relationship of Command” had one foot moving towards their roots as a post-hardcore mid-90’s emo act it also had the other moving in seemingly the opposite direction into the realm of unorthodox time signatures, guitar lines, and lyrical concepts. The end result tore the body of the band apart and left us with this; a full exploration in the progressive territory that the Omar/Cedric duo were so curious about that
still manages to capture the raw power of their previous efforts.
Ignore any supposed concept contained in the album's indecipherable, John Anderson-esc lyrical drivel and the supposed "philosophy" behind the recording of this and The Mars Volta's other albums (a process in which Omar has described as being akin to how an editor pieces together the parts to a film). The first six songs here are essentially all you need to listen to in order to fully capture the entire vision of this band (or at least, the only vision worth capturing). From the intro piece "Interiatic Esp"’s epic build ups, the stuttering schizophrenic mood swings of "Roulette Dares" (in my opinion, the bands greatest song and Jon Theodore’s finest exposition of drum work), and the Latin-funk influence that lingers over “Drunkship of Lanterns” The Mars Volta create an almost dizzying effect; a revolving door of time signature changes, brief ambient moments, and exercises in abrasive jazzy "wankness" (and I mean that in the best way possible). What keeps these songs from sinking into tedious boredom is how absolutely
relentless and compact they are. Not a single second is wasted in any of these songs with each “jam section” and each “ambient section” and each distinguishable chorus or verse coming at just the right moments and leaving before they get too redundant. It keeps you on your toes, and while it may at first be utterly annoying to your ears (there really is an absurd amount of information to process with each song) the chaos makes more sense the more you open yourself up to the album.
Now, while the first half of the album is nearly flawless, the same can't be said about the second half. While still good, the group slips into moments that would foreshadow the eventual problems their later albums would suffer from. “Cicatriz Esp”, while initially another great song, decides to linger in a boring and tedious ambient exercise which is neither beautiful, interesting, or all too memorable. It's drawn to the point of lost interest right up until the end where the song decides to resume where it left off before dicking about. A similar dulled impact plagues “This Apparatus Must be Unearthed”, which is almost
entirely forgettable, as it blends in as just another jam indistinguishable and lacking the same luster as the other songs on the album. Thankfully, the last two songs here bring things back into perspective. “Televators”, a Latin influenced ballad, changes the pace up a bit, while the finale, “Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt”, summarizes the album in its entirety.
Omar gives us possibly his
greatest guitar performance here (highly reminiscent of Robert Fripps’ work at times) as the song evolves from a stuttering jam, to a "punkish" chorus, into an ambient section, into a "mathy" flexing of the band's chops, into a Latin jam,
*takes breath* and
finally ending the last minute of the album spewing crescendos at the listener.
If you’re looking for a continuation of the direction that At the Drive-In was going in before they broke up, look no further. Because for just one album the Mexi-duo not only manage to push themselves to the absolute limits of their musical prowess, but they also manage to one up the intensity and energy they so proudly crusaded for during their time in At the Drive-In, effectively (yet momentarily) escaping the engulfing shadow that their past efforts cast over them.
