Album / Artist: The Mars Volta / The Mars Volta

Label: Clouds Hill

Release Date: September 16, 2022
Review Date: 1/8/2023
Reviewer: DJ Stace

General Comments / Reviews:

Deft electronic, guitar rock fusion. An album full of great tracks, some keepers. - DJ Stace

The Mars Volta becomes more rewarding with repetition. Despite the outwardly more accessible style, the group has stuffed it full of intriguing musical choices. - popmatters

Release Notes:

The Mars Volta is the seventh studio album by American progressive rock band the Mars Volta, released through Clouds Hill on September 16, 2022.[2] Produced by guitarist, songwriter and musical director Omar Rodríguez-López, the album was preceded by the singles Blacklight Shine, Graveyard Love and Vigil.[3]

Wikipedia
Breaking a decade of omertà, The Mars Volta reawaken from their lengthy hiatus with an eponymous album that radically reshapes their paradigm. The new album shakes loose some of The Mars Volta’s long-standing shibboleths, fearlessly defying all expectations and categorizations. Instead, The Mars Volta pulses with subtle brilliance, Caribbean rhythms underpinning sophisticated, turbulent songcraft. This is The Mars Volta at their most mature, most concise, most focused. Their sound and fury channeled to greatest effect, The Mars Volta finds Rodríguez-López’s subterranean pop melodies driving Bixler-Zavala’s dark sci-fi tales of the occult and malevolent governments. Distilling all the passion, poetry and power at their fingertips, The Mars Volta is the most exciting and accessible music the group has ever recorded.

Clouds Hill Records
FCCs: 13

RIYL: Hum, At the Drive-in, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Play: All, Favs Rated with up to *****

Tracklist:


1. **** Blacklight Shine 2:55 - Handclaps and bongos, wah-wah guitars and harmonic vocals, a bit reminiscent of recent King Gizzard. Spanish lyric interludes.
2. **** Graveyard Love 3:14 - Uptempo drum-driven with soaring vocals. Abrupt ending.
3. *** Shore Story 3:15 - Slow yacht-rock R&B love anthem with breathy vocals, and soft electric piano soundbed. Pretty good, actually.
4. Blank Condolences 3:27 - Midtempo, organ driven. Shuffling drums. Great chorus, breakdown and moaning guitar solos.
5. *** Vigil 3:14 - Midtempo shuffling electronic rhythm at first gives way to a midtempo power rocker at the chorus.
6. **** Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon 1:41 - Buzzing Salsa beat driven rocker.
7. *** Cerulea 3:45 - Breathy boy-bandesque acapella intro gives way to midtempo pop rocker.
8. Flash Burns From Flashbacks 2:38 - Uptempo with chaotic drum machine beats and prog sensibilities.
9. Palm Full of Crux 3:36 - Slow, keyboard-driven ballad. Flute solo over the top, at the end is cool.
10. **** No Case Gain 2:41 - uptempo driving electro-beat kraut-rocker gives way to driving guitar rocker. Chaotic, angular and interesting. Would sound good segued to some of QOTSA’s more spacerock stuff.
11. Tourmaline 3:34 - Midtempo classical acoustic guitar intro with layers harmonic vocals, drums enter halfway through
12. ***** Equus 3 4:09 - Uptempo aggressive, buzzing electro rocker. Complex rhythms, killer chorus drop. Play it.
13. *** Collapsible Shoulders FCC “Fuck” 2:24 - Low warbling intro, gives way to quasi trip-hop ballad.
14. *** The Requisition 4:12 - Midtempo, shifting rhythms, driving in some interludes. Very Peter Gabriel. Abrupt crescendo ending.