I don’t know what to make
of these guys. I have three of
their records, one of which I love,
the other two of which I have
very mixed feelings about.
They seem to be a band that
deliberately eschews accessibility,
even down to their artier-than-thou
cover art, which typically includes
little or difficult to decipher identifying
information, and in the case of their
most recent studio release, none at
all. That’s right. Nothing. It’s the color
of a brown paper bag and features
absolutely zero textual guidance.
They make music that is sometimes
difficult to listen to, progressive,
noisy and orchestral in turn, often
heavy, sometimes downright folky,
challenging to say the least. Cedric
Bixler-Zavala’s voice is not always friendly–
a kind of Geddy Lee, Jon Anderson, or Wayne
Coyne type, but more melodically wild,
sometimes more manic, lyrically strange
and brainy (stranger and brainier
than Wayne Coyne),
but truth-be-told, the guy can really sing.
Probably the main appeal of their
music for me is that this duo, Bixler-Zavala
and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez are, and
surround themselves with, phenomenal
musicians. All of these cats really cook
on their instruments; the drums in
particular, even in a revolving list of
drummers, are some of the nuttiest, most
complex drumming performances
I’ve heard in a while. Let’s listen.
The first song on Noctourniquet “The Whip
Hand,” is almost impossible to count.
The time signature, or the way in which spaces
between the rhythms occur, make it challenging
to find the one of each measure. After the first side
I had to play that song again and concentrate really
hard. It makes sense to me now, I think, when
I realize that almost everything the drummer
plays is on the upbeat. Don’t try dancing to this.
You will hurt yourself. Even when the band
plays in 4/4, the drum patterns are often so
wildly inventive as to make the beat feel like
an odd meter even though it’s not. And on
“Empty Vessels Make the Loudest Sounds,”
don’t be fooled by that beautiful verse form.
It’s gonna get noisy all up in here. This
album is so clearly great, I’m trying to figure
out why I didn’t listen to it more often.
The weirdness is typically a thing that would
make me a super fan–I guess I just found it
challenging in ways that kept me from
repeated spins: the pure, messy noisiness
of “In Absentia,” perhaps. But as I listen to it today,
I have the sinking suspicion that I have been
missing out a little bit on something cool.
I want to get to know this record better.
Comparatively, the self titled album,
The Mars Volta, released ten years later
without a single album in between,
is a progressive easy-listening masterclass.
This album I love, unequivocally. I read
somewhere that they were deliberately
trying to write a pop album. They failed
at that, but succeeded in making a record
relatively free of distortion and noisy
soundscapes. It’s clean, melodically catchy,
the songs are uncharacteristically short,
and Bixler-Zavala’s vocals are exquisite.
The drumming is still wildly interesting
and intricate, but never gets in the way.
If it calls attention to itself, it’s well-deserved
attention. This album was so delicious,
that they recorded an entirely different
version of it with all acoustic instruments
and vocals delivered entirely in Spanish.
For anyone remotely curious about The
Mars Volta, this 2022 album, either the
original or the acoustic version is the
best way to begin, I think–excepting that,
perhaps, it won’t prepare you very well
for the rest of the catalog.
This final album from The Mars Volta
in my collection, Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos del Vacio,
last year earned from me a double sonnet
during National Poetry Month, primarily,
for having absolutely the ugliest cover art
in my collection. Art is not really the right word.
And ugly is probably the wrong word,
unless you believe that the tan-brown
color of a cardboard box or a paper bag
is inherently “ugly.” I’m not sure that’s fair
to cardboard boxes and paper bags.
More psychedelic than the last album,
and more challenging, but not in the noise
rock way that Noctourniquet was challenging.
Here, too, there is some beautiful singing
and some quiet instrumental interludes
and intros and tunes that seem downright
chill. There are a number of spooky
moments as well, some cacophony
at the end, and I’d tell you about
the song titles but there is no track list
anywhere out or inside the jacket.
It’s a darker record to be sure in
almost every conceivable way, but ultimately
a pleasant, engaging listening experience.
I feel similarly today listening for the first
time in maybe a year to the way I felt earlier
about Noctourniquet, that here is a record
that deserves closer and more frequent listens.
Notes on the vinyl editions:
- Noctourniquet, Warner Brothers Records (although my edition features the Clouds Hill logo, indicating that maybe this is a reissue), 2012, double album on translucent light blue and dark blue vinyl.
- The Mars Volta, Clouds Hill Records, 2022, black heavyweight vinyl. I don’t own this record, but FYI, the Spanish language acoustic instrument version of the album is called Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazón.
- Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos del Vacio, Clouds Hil Records, 2025, double black vinyl.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 