The Mars Volta - Amputechture Album Review

The Mars Volta
Amputechture
Album Review

The last time Contact Music ran into The Mars Volta in early 2005, mainmen Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez were enthusing about the ever-changing vocabulary of words that they had been creating, splicing words together to create new, conjoined twisted images. "Words like 'amputechture!" said singer Bixler-Zavala.

And so, it seemed, another lofty concept was born.

While the arrival of any new Mars Volta material is always a welcome holiday from the formulaic indie masses, a burst of fractal colour in a monochrome world that deems The Strokes cutting edge, their third studio album initially feels like more of the same. Initially anyway, for their progressively-minded, ever-pulsating music usually requires six weeks of listening where others bands need only six minutes but – and this is a crucial but – over these eight tracks. The Mars Volta briefly seem in danger of being formulaic.

Which isn't to say 'Amputechture' is a bad record in any way. Formulaic for The Mars Volta still means a journey to a planet like no other. One where the sky is red, the grass blue and feelings of a strange fever permeate throughout; at times gentle and anaesthetising (as on the Spanish-tongued acoustic song 'Meccamputechture'), at others, heady, complex and breath-taking pretty much (everywhere else). So dense is the squall of Latino-tinged psychedelic free-jazz that it feels only a couple of tabs of acid could truly open the doors into this weird and wonderful world. Like their recent live-come-soundscape album 'Scab Dates', 'Amputechture' requires effort and commitment; it's only by third song 'Vermicide' that you feel like this album has truly begun. There are no pop thrills or instant melodies here, only fleeting images, hypnotic and brilliantly-executed backwards-sounding, delineated guitars solo's from Rodriguez-Lopez and thunderous rhythm section outbursts and extended jams courtesy of guests such as Chili Pepper John Frusciante.

The overall effect recalls the experimental vanguard of jazz greats like John Coltrane, coupled with the same raw live power of Led Zeppelin. It's a thrilling combination, a two-fingered salute to their dull, drab <> American contemporaries.

So the only formulas actually being adhered to here are the ones already laid down by the band themselves. The maxim here is: anything goes. And with 'Amputechture' The Mars Volta continue to boldly go in strange and interesting new directions

Ben Myers