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A little over a year after the release of "Amputechture," The Mars Volta return...
I honestly had very little hope for this new effort of theirs, following their last two works ("Frances The Mute" and "Amputechture"), rich in creativity and interesting ideas, yet decidedly too inconclusive and without a clear direction; furthermore, if we add that "De-loused In The Comatorium" remains one of the most significant (and simply beautiful!) albums of the first decade of the new millennium, I think you can understand my lack of trust...
But those two geniuses Cedric Bixler Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez managed to surprise me instead! They present themselves in 2008 with a decidedly more compact and linear album, without putting aside their eclecticism and their eccentricity in composing music... and that's no small feat!
We start off with the pressing "Aberinkula" which introduces us to the heterogeneous world of The Mars Volta: immediately in the foreground (as always) we have Cedric's very high-pitched voice and Omar's crazy guitars. Absolutely commendable and genius is the instrumental part that goes from the middle of the song onwards, where intriguing guitar solos intertwine with dissonant lines of wind instruments to reach an energetic finale that throws us directly into the next "Metatron", which starts with what is instantly revealed as a very catchy and absolutely spot-on chorus; the rest of the track is everything you can expect from the Hispanic-Texan duo: breathless changes of tempo and atmosphere like few groups know how to do today.
The next "Ilyena" stands out for its Latin character and its pop-oriented leanings: a very interesting track. "Wax Simulacra" serves as a bridge to the excellent "Goliath", a song full of slowdowns and accelerations, certainly one of the best of the entire album.
"Torniquet Man" is a slow interlude that only introduces the central "Cavalettas", another powerful track in its progression. Worth noting is Thomas Pridgen's performance on the drums: both devastating and precise in the faster and heavier parts (the intro of "Ouroboros" to name just one...) and sweet and tribal in the slower ones. "Soothsayer" strikes with its oriental atmospheres and with its King Crimsonian echoes while "Coniugal Burns" is a worthy conclusion for the album.
And are there any flaws? I would say Cedric's voice, which for most of the album strikes and moves, but at some points tends to be a bit annoying due to the excessive use of vocal synthesizers which become tiring in the long run ("the finale of "Torniquet Man" above all).
Ultimately, an excellent album that brings The Mars Volta back to the glory of the first album, confirming them as among the few modern artists who at least strive to offer something new.
A happy return.
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