Review Summary: The void never looked back.
It’s almost impossible not to feel disappointed with The Mars Volta these days. Since the release of
Noctourniquet in 2012, and the long silence that signified their indefinite hiatus, the effervescent duo comprised by Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-López have been seemingly reluctant to summon the indomitable muse that inspired the groundbreaking, earth-shattering, mind-flaying catalogue of their early 2000s career. Or so I thought.
Because it’s been 20 years since
Frances the Mute, yes, I’ll give you some seconds to let that sink in. Now I won’t say that for some of us, the years take their toll in different ways, some age gracefully and cling to the better days like there was no future beyond tomorrow, and others prefer to go down with the current, streaming down to an ocean of adulthood, beer bellies, baldness and grandkids. I believe Cedric and Omar are… somewhere in the middle.
I haven’t seen how The Mars Volta are doing on stage lately; I don’t know if they still hold that flame of old and are capable of jumping and contorting around like they used to while firing their back catalogue or if they stick to the more physically manageable and less demanding “new” MV. What I do know is that, in these last years, the duo has found themselves embracing a certain degree of sensibility, an almost imperceptible wisdom that prefers to drink from different wells, and
Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vac*o (Dirty profit; Eyes of the void) is one more step on that direction.
The Mars Volta are not doing anything that they haven’t been doing since the release of their post-hiatus returning self-titled album in 2022.
Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vac*o is a lethargic album, probably the smoothest of the trilogy, but I find it to be also the most impressive. Songs cascade one into another effortlessly, Cedric is in some sort of state of grace where melodies flow out of his mouth like he’s just making them as he goes, and their Latin music roots are incorporated into their music with taste, balance and extreme attention to detail.
The album clocks at 48 minutes but includes 18 cuts, with only the closer going on to almost 6 minutes. Most of the songs are chained and the whole thing just feels like a fever dream with excellent production and pristine execution. But again, we’re talking about The Mars Volta, and this, to a certain extent, it’s a problem in itself.
Part of me whishes the album would explode. It’s like a rollercoaster that keeps climbing and climbing forever and never drops, and you’re up on the clouds, and eventually you reach outer space, and you start to feel sleepy, but God demands an audience, and you keep wondering why the hell the thing wouldn’t start dropping already back to Earth. Instead, you’re treated to Peter Gabriel or Santana, and your conscience just fades away as you give in to the sibylline tunes of
Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vac*o.
On a surface level this will be, I believe, the common take. On a deeper level, and with a bit of commitment,
Lucro sucio… does reward the effort that the listener may put into it, and I’ve been personally pulled into its charms for days since its release and I still feel I haven’t wrapped my head about it. Maybe I never will, but I hope that at least I made you curious. Whether you’re new to a band that has been running for decades, or most plausibly, some returning fool that keeps wanting them to put the album that they no longer have in them, you’d do good in lending an ear to the Mars Volta’s new artistic ambitions. Why? How the hell am I supposed to know, I just clean windows here.
