Amputechture

Performer: The Mars Volta
Engineer: Paul Fig; Robert Carranza
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: The Mars Volta: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Paul Hinojos, Cedric Bixler-Zavala. Personnel: Sara Christina Gross (saxophone). Additional personnel: John Frusciante (guitar). Audio Mixer: Rich Costey. Recording information: El Paso, TX; Los Angeles, CA; Melbourne, Australia. Director: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. Arranger: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. On its third full-length album, the Mars Volta abandoned the enigmatic conceptual themes of its acclaimed earlier outings, DE-LOUSED IN THE COMATORIUM and FRANCES THE MUTE, but left its fascinatingly bizarre aesthetic intact. The result is a more immediate, though certainly not more conventional, approach, as vocalist Cedric Bixler Zavala and guitarist Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez once again take listeners on a tour of surreal rock territory where the sounds of King Crimson, Santana, and Led Zeppelin are welded together into frenetic post-punk-influenced aural sculptures. Featuring significant contributions by multi-instrumentalist Pablo Hinojos-Gonzalez and frequent guest guitarist John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, AMPUTECHTURE is slightly less daunting than Volta's previous discs (see the stomping, horn-laden "Viscera Eyes"), but no less inventive.

Rolling Stone (p.88) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Three songs here exceed ten minutes and are crammed with quantum-physics-level time signatures, battle-to-the-death jousts between guitar and horns and Bixler-Zavala's hummingbird keening." Spin (p.104) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[Omar Rodriguez-Lopez] scales back, relatively speaking, and rediscovers the crucial difference between prog nirvana and prog indulgence." Entertainment Weekly (p.77) - "AMPUTECHTURE again revels in overkill: fever-pitched vocals, orchestral fanfares, Latin percussion solos, even an acoustic Spanish interlude." -- Grade: B Uncut (p.89) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "Another 76-minute suite of apocrypha, endlessly contorting melodies, psychedelic curlicues...and general hysteria..." Vibe (p.156) - "[T]hey deeply, rapturously feel every long-winded, loony lick." Kerrang (Magazine) (p.66) - Ranked #19 in Kerrang's "20 Greatest Albums of 2006" -- "[L]eft-field esoterica and constantly mutating space rock jams."

Though Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler Zavala did time in popular Emo band At The Drive-In, their subsequent project, the Mars Volta, is a horse of an entirely different color. Instead of punk, the pair takes their influences largely from 1970s prog rock and fusion. Extended, suite-like compositions and dizzying instrumental virtuosity are the order of the day, rather than adolescent angst and primitive pounding. Mars Volta's debut album, 2003's DE-LOUSED IN THE COMATORIUM announced the band's presence with a bang, setting a standard for post-emo ambitions in the mid-2000s.

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