2 keepers
keeper avg .166
As usual, the fourth Mars Volta album screams out of the gate with "Aberinkula" and the similar "Metatron" (the "Maybe I'll break down" song), both their typical brand of jazz-thrash prog-rock. However, starting with Metatron's complex but groovy bridge, successive tracks gradually seem increasingly more accessible (or at least more conventional), with the slightly funky "Ilyena," and the blazing but relatively concise "Wax Simulacra" (under 3 minutes!); they might even be considered listenable to the general public if not for a fair amount of extraneous arty noise and vocals processed to the chipmunk range. The album reaches its peak in the middle, with the prog-funk "Goliath"****; it's like first album Rage Against The Machine but with actual singing, concluded with a frantic Santana psychedelic coda. After a quick verse-chorus at punk speed, "Cavalletas"**** takes a few psychedelic diversions in its center section, anchored by a great syncopated waltz-time bridge. Between these two monsters is a moody little jingle of an interlude, the vaguely Pink Floyd meets Ozzy Osbourne "Tourniquet Man."
There's still a lot of album after this, some of it arguably more out there, and unfortunately the decent musical hooks more or less dry up. The dark R&B "Agadez" and the post-punk "Ouroboros," which like "Aberinkula" is pretty close to sounding like predecessor band At The Drive-In, are relatively conventional. But "Askepios" is unapologetically arty, with weird spacey passages punctuated by chaotic orchestral builds, the combination resembling Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother" (1970). And forget about the repetitive nine-minute space-jazz odyssey "Soothsayer." The album-closing "Conjugal Burns" (the "Just so you know" song) starts as a pretty conventional psychedelic waltz before going off into noise land. Mars Volta's career trajectory appears to have reached the "Permanent Waves" phase, with song lengths being limited to 9-minutes-ish, and at least some songs sounding amazing, recording-wise (this a headphone album for sure), but you wouldn't call any tracks radio-friendly either. For better or worse, at best their music is still like Gentle Giant if they took amphetamines, at worst it's just pretentious noise, usually all in the same song.
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