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Rating: Frank Zappa and his protégés. Despite the artistic stature of the inimitable mustached man, it is undeniable/evident that the continuation of his discourse by other artists/more or less valid pretentious substitutes is (proportionally to the absolute value of such works) at least limited. The tortuous paths and the extremism of certain ideas are too convoluted grounds to allow common mortals to tread them, like Valentino Rossi in F1.
This Omar Rodriguez Lopez is not a South American center-forward, but rather the (bawdy) guitarist of Mars Volta. His favorite sport is flaunting his knowledge (whether it is relative or absolute, you decide) in musical matters, which he does by playing with a cool and captivating tone evoking illustrious predecessors, starting from his neurotic style up to the title of his project.
After a negligible album with Damo Suzuki of Can and another as prolix as a queue at the post office, here is his new discographic effort.
If you're looking for a not-so-discreet blend (in the sense that redundancy here splashes everywhere) of Frank Zappa's "Hot Rats", Soft Machine's "Third" rearranged according to the moods of the MTV era, Mars Volta (which indeed are enough to lengthen the list of influences) and thirty years of guitar heroes' history, you're served.
The bespectacled guitarist gets his hands dirty with jazz, funk, Latin influences and sporadically with electronic inserts of krautrock memory. Besides obviously with a lot of rock n' roll simultaneously fiery and cool as a Bindi sorbet, that often loses its magic in vainly resorting to the "Frippian" discipline. Because unlike Mr. King Crimson, the Puerto Rican guitarist plays very much (also) from the gut. Much like the combination of his pseudo-intellectual glasses and his wild hair, each sonic explosion is controlled and often falters with self-indulgence, so caught up in shouting this and that (illustrious) influence in the listener's face.
Such arrogance might make one think of an album of unsustainable guitar masturbation, but between a jazz scale at a thousand miles an hour and the inevitable nods to Hendrix, it's easy to discern a noticeable and too often underestimated talent. Lopez doesn't mask the lack of ideas behind virtuosity, but the latter is the backbone of his compositions, like it or not. This is evidenced by the psychedelic incursions, that desire for liberating ultra-noise and bewildering quest for "total" music. It is evidenced by the second part of the album, where the initial guitar barrage gradually finds its focus.
Of the tracks present here, I don't feel like mentioning any in particular, this is a long stream of consciousness, cloaked in pseudo vintage effects but vividly futuristic, like the contrasts between samba and cosmic music. The stream of consciousness of a monkey, perhaps. In the end, perhaps I am not the right person able to transcend the Bergsonian historical/musical horizon in which we find ourselves, and I cautiously award three stars (though ample) to the whole, but I await this artist at the threshold for a work that knows how to dispel all my uncertainties in judgment and makes me smile with satisfaction during listening. Because it seems that at some point monkeys stood up.
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