The Mars Volta -Amputechture

Wed 13th Sep, 2006 in Music Reviews

These days, finding an album which is high quality listening the whole way through is far more difficult than it perhaps should be. Yet in the midst of this drought of cohesion, The Mars Volta have come up with an album that offers incredible musical diversity and innovation from start to finish, adding weight to their reputation of being this era’s true avant-garde. Sitting through the whole album sure isn’t for the faint-hearted (take Pitchfork Media, for example), but believe me, it pays off.

Amputechture is the band’s third studio release, after 2003’s De-loused in the Comatorium and last year’s release Frances the Mute. Critics have asserted that Amputechture could easily be a collection of B-sides from the previous album, but when heard through my ears, nothing could possibly be further from the truth.

Even the cover art is a step away from the band’s usual regime – it is all taken from the work of artist Jeff Jordan. The contorted Surrealist imagery is in keeping with the free-form, experimental mood of The Mars Volta’s music, and harks back to members Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler Zavala’s hometown of El Paso, Mexico.

Art, film and literature interestingly play an influential role for The Mars Volta, particularly surrealist and Mexican artists such as Salvador Dali and Frida Kahlo, and films of various styles and genres. “When you have a more intangible form of inspiration like a book or a movie, it’s different than being inspired by a song because the transference of energy is now changing.”, as Omar explained to Wav Magazine.

Amputechture is also the first album to be without a consistent narrative throughout. While the previous releases were inspired by and a documentation of particular events (the death of friend and band mate Jeremy Ward, for example), the latest is compiled rather from “unrelated stories, vignettes, inside jokes, various people, events memories…”

Beginning with the eerie ‘Vicarious Atonement’, the album has been described as religious commentary, with many biblical references and allusions. However, its focus is less on the love of God than the fear of Him, and is thus often strangely forceful and even distressing.

‘Tetragrammaton’, the epic second track, takes us on a relentless journey, jumping and flowing from motif to motif. Jon Theodore is no less superb than usual in his drumming, but this release marks his last collaboration with The Mars Volta – he will be replaced for touring by Blake Fleming, who in fact performed on the original demos.

You can be certain that no quality in the guitar playing has been lost due to Omar’s decision to relinquish all participation in the musicianship of the album and concentrate on being sole producer. Instead he has called upon John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Frusciante has without a doubt come up with the goods. His playing resonates with a variety of musical eras, most noticeably the eighties jazz fusion scene and experimental groups of the sixties.

The slower but no less intense ‘Vermicide’ almost serves as something of an interlude between two epics – ‘Meccamputechture’ seems to combine pure rock and orchestral ostinatos, electronic alterations and saxophones in its eleven minute duration, finally coming to resolution with the forceful “It lacks a human pulse” and mad djembe beats.

‘Asilos Magdalena’, the only track on which John Frusciante does not play, is something of a surprise on the album. It is along the lines of the Buena Vista Social Club’s Dos Gardenias, or similar Spanish guitar-laced ballads. Cedric’s voice is drastically changed, it lacks the power of the earlier tracks and instead has acquired a breathy vibrato, which is not altogether unappealing, and leads pleasantly into the only radio-friendly track, ‘Viscera Eyes’.

Having already heard and become attuned to Viscera Eyes, thanks to Triple J and The Mars Volta’s Myspace, the track stuck out as being fairly obviously engineered to fit radio requirements. No surprise, given ‘The Widow’, which fulfilled the very same purpose on Frances the Mute. One can’t blame the band for wanting just one song that could be played on the airwaves, but amidst such adventurous work, ‘Viscera Eyes’ is noticeably formulaic. Despite this, there is still high musical quality and a skillful working of melody and accompaniment, and a clever reversal of verse and chorus.

Bass players will delight in ‘Day of the Baphomets’, and if you don’t, you may as well give up now. The Pastorius-esque soloing leads mouthwateringly into a frenzy of saxophones, guitar effects and carefully crafted drumming. The song has perhaps the most catchy vocal melody of the album, and descends into frantic instrumental sections in between inventive time signature manipulation and vocal acrobatics. There is hope still, though, for the “One Two Three Four”, and an accessible beat eventually returns.

The final track of the album repeats original themes from the opening, and brings the pace back to a level where the heart slows down, and you can fully appreciate the intense journey you’ve just been taken on. It could be drawn out forever, but really, by this time half your evening is gone, the wine bottle is empty and you’re completely drained of all capacity to think, talk or walk. All it takes is a few eerie whispers to end ‘El Ciervo Vulnerado’ and with it Amputechture, and you’re gone.

How do you end a work so surreal that it’s like another world? Simple. You don’t allow it to end. The only way I can explain the abrupt departure from the album without a resolution is through this literary quote – “It is only what we do not understand that we can come to a conclusion about. There will be no conclusion.”

And so it was.