Culture Blues

Music: “Octahedron” – The Mars Volta

Fearlessness can result from many things. One can be oblivious to any possible danger/embarrassment that would result from their actions, or there can be an all encompassing sense of invulnerability/vanity which makes one feel impervious. Wherever it stemmed from, The Mars Volta USED to be fearless. Spinning a Mars Volta record was like taking a journey through twisted time signatures and violent dynamic shifts, all while lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala wailed in your ears in his signature bi-lingual cadence. I often used words like thrilling, adventurous, and incendiary to describe their work, but if I had to describe their newest effort in one word, it would be, alas, boring.

Lead guitarist and lives-in-the-studio producer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez has said that Octahedron is their "acoustic record" and Bixler-Zavala even expressed how he wanted this record to be released on a Major label. Both of these notions sound like the death knells of the experimental band that it seemed was reviving the prog movement for the third millennium. Don't get me wrong; there is still some very spacey and lush production work all over the record. "Copernicus" weaves some wonderful electronica into its latter verses, and "Cotopaxi" is the kind of vintage rocker that you wish the entire record was comprised of. For the most part, I listened to this record hoping for something scintillating to happen at the top of the next measure, and it never really came. Even the last track of the record ("Luciforms") seems like it takes a bit too long to reach its climax, which is, by far, the high point of the record.

I have read that The Mars Volta has already recorded and are waiting to distribute their next album. I desperately hope it is not the spiritual successor to this one.