De-Loused In The Comatorium is an iridescent, fearless, brain-busting hour of music, a fictionalized celebration of Julio Venegas’ life. Based on a story written by Cedric, it is a concept album in which the hero tries to commit suicide by overdosing on morphine. Instead of dying, he falls into a coma for a week, and experiences fantastic adventures in his dreams, elemental battles between the good and bad aspects of his conscience. At the end, he emerges from the coma, but chooses to die. (www.themarsvolta.com)
Most definitely the best album to be released in ages. It’s not metal, but heavy as can be in a musical way. The music has its roots in the psychedelic rock of the 60/70s and I find traces of King Crimson’s progressive rock, Led Zeppelin’s root-rock and Santana’s Latin groove.
The band was founded by two members of At The Drive-In (that called it quits): Cedric Bixler Zavala (vocals) and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (guitars). They got some help from Rick Rubin (production) and Flea helped them out with the bass. I guess that Flea only performed on a few tracks because the line-up of the band looks like this:
Cedric Zavala – Vocals
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez – Guitar
Jon Theodore – Drums
Juan Alderete – Bass
Isaiah Owens – Keyboards
TMV is not about post-hardcore/emo-core as ATDI was. The music is still somewhat chaotic but the rage is gone and the production is sophisticated not raw. Zavala’s vocals have changed. He doesn’t sing on the verge of breaking down as in ATDI. His vocal qualities remind a lot of Björk and one could mistake him for a female vocalist! The melodies and lyrically repetitive choruses stick to your brain like glue. The overall impression is that the music is a mixture of beauty, chaos and great musicianship. The most chaotic parts are the heavier ones (often choruses) in which the drummer works over-time playing in a drum’n’bass-like manner.
Besides the influences I mentioned earlier the music somewhat reminds of modern bands such as Tool, A Perfect Circle or Dredg. As you all understand this is an outstanding band with a style hard to describe. You should buy this album because it’s filled with killer songs. Simply alternative rock at its best! I guess that Björk would sound like this if she were born a guy!
10 of 10 (I’d give more if possible!)
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