I'm gonna preface my criticisms with this: My knowledge of The Mars Volta is a little cursory, and I have only a small amount of experience with them from Amputechture and onward, so take this all with a grain of salt.null1024 wrote:Decided to see if I enjoyed The Mars Volta as much as I did back in 2007 or so.
Deloused in the Comatorium is still an ace album, and just about everything else they've done has some severe issues [such as songs going absolutely nowhere for several minutes at a time, almost just because that's "their thing" instead of it making sense for the song].
They can fucking play, their tracks just have focus issues, to the point where you can skip like three and four minutes of a song and not miss much.
Was just listening to the song Meccamputecture, ace song, kind of wished the rest of the album Amputecture got anywhere that good, I even think it's pretty damn well paced overall.
And now I'm listening to Cygnus... Vismund Cygnus, which is pretty ace even though it's way too long for its own good [all of the songs on Francis the Mute kind of are].
First and foremost, these guys are definitely technically skilled, this is pretty obvious. It's their compositional skills that are more debatable. The main thing that kept me away from them for years was the vocals. I found them obnoxious. While i've come to enjoy them more over time I can't help but feel his vocal range is a little limited (I believe the register he frequently sings in is falsetto?). I must admit his talent though, every time I here him shout "LASH OF ONE THOUSAND EYEBROWS CLICKING, COUNTING THE TOLL! COUNTING THE TOLL!" I have to stand up from all the pins and needles in my soul (uhhgg, ts'good man), I just wish he used a bit more variation from track to track (maybe trying a deeper register for once?). I know this is his style, but some of his vocal work can be homogenic to a detriment. This wouldn't be a problem if his vocals weren't often the centerpiece of every song or if they were mixed a little different, there are multiple factors, it's definitely not solely his voice.
It's funny that you guys like Deloused and Amputechture the best, because my favourite is Frances The Mute (I guess this makes us three different wheels on the same tricycle
). I think all TMV releases suffer from the meandering issue though (not even Drunkship is immune, the coda isn't quite Sonic Youth quality despite their best efforts), even Deloused, it's just meandering at a faster tempo. I also find Frances to be the most cohesive and have no problem with the length of Cygnus (more of a problem with L'Via L'Viaquez and onwards, though cassandra gemini does pretty well despite it's massive length).While we're on the subject, Relationship Of Command is an album that i've always wanted to like, but i end up being disappointed every time I listen to it (I just listened to it from start to finish to see if I still feel the same). A little bit might have to do with me simply knowing more about Post-Hardcore than Prog and having a little higher standards, but I can't help but feel like that album is half-baked (especially some of the cheesy refrains) even though some of the ideas are pretty genius. Even the band doesn't like that album because the engineer, Andy Wallace, apparently botched the mix. They say it was a much better album before the mix came out the way it did, and from what I know about mixing jobs, it can really change the sound and feel of an album. It makes me wonder if I would have liked the album more if it was as raw as it was originally intended to be. Still though, it's flow and energy really does save the album and I can perfectly understand why it would be someones jam (even though I would usually prefer to throw on something like Fugazi or Jawbox's For Your Own Special Sweetheart).
You lucky guy, and I bet they still rip shit apart like it's 1994. uhhg, the thought of hearing "Here Come The Rome Plows" live makes me salivate.
Let me know what you guys think! 
