I’m feeling… ummm… less bad than yesterday. Thanks for your concern, thanks for letting me vent, and thanks for sending the good vibes my way (I didn’t actually receive any of the aforementioned “good vibes”… my personal firewall probably prevented the vibes from making it through. I’ll have to check with the admin).
And now… on to more important things. Like The Mars Volta.
My pal, Mike, introduced me to The Mars Volta some time ago. He handed me a burned CD (for purely back-up purposes, of course) and said, “Listen to this. It’s interesting. You’ll like it.” It was a copy of the album De-Loused in the Comatorium.
I listened to that CD for about two weeks straight. Every track turned corners into areas of sound that I would have never expected. It kept me guessing. And Interested. And, just as I thought that I had them figured out, The Mars Volta pulls something completely amazing out of nowhere.
But, what do they sound like? It’s impossible to put these guys in a little box like that. Standard rock setup; vocals, guitars, bass, drums. What are they though? Punk, emo, hardcore, prog… The Mars Volta consists of components of hugely unrelated musical styles. But not in the way that their style might seem unfocused or scattered. No. On the contrary, it is intensely focused, densely layered, and impossible to ignore. The Mars Volta is not background music.
Their newest endeavor, Frances the Mute (which I was able to get a preview of a couple of months ago), is out now. In many ways, it is an extension of De-Loused. This album however, has the potential of being its superior, emotionally matured, successor. I have been listening to the full work, without rest since yesterday.
I’m glad that you posted this, I was wondering when the offical release would come out. Now I know, and armed with this knowledge I must make a run to the record complex.
For those of you in my neck of the woods, The Mars Volta is playing the Palladium in Worcester, MA on May 9th. See you there!