The Blogman Cometh

     Salve, fellow metalheads, and welcome to Loud Noises, my new blog primarily focused on heavy music. As often as I can get around to it (once every week or two seems super optimistic at this point, but we'll see), this space will struggle to contain my thoughts, opinions, musings, and general ramblings about all the music that's near and dear to my big, bearded heart.



     Of course, after calling the thing Loud Noises and starting off by saying I'm going to focus on heavy music, I really have no other choice for my first post but to talk about a band that's pretty far from the usual bounds of what makes metal. Nevertheless, they're cool, they've got a new record out, and I feel like talking at you about them. So there. That's what a blog's for, right? Letting me talk at you about what I think is cool? Right. So settle in kids, because today I'm talking at you about The Mars Volta.

     Never heard of them? Or have, but don't know why you should give a fuck about them? A quick history lesson then: way back in the 90's, there was this band called At The Drive-In. Maybe you've heard of them? Maybe, if you're approximately my age, their seminal post-hardcore* Relationship of Command in 2000 formed part of both your introduction to heavier, more progressive, and generally more interesting music as well as your high school soundtrack in general**? Or maybe not. Anyways, just as Relationship of Command was getting bigger and making them a name, ATDI broke up. Of course, there were probably many reasons why, but as far as it pertains to the Mars Volta, the general idea is that ATDI singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala, along with guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, felt that what ATDI was and what it was becoming were too constrictive, limiting where the band could go musically. Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez Lopez left the more straightforward-minded (yeah, not a word, deal with it) members of ATDI to soldier on and form alternative rock-type outfit Sparta -- a decent band in its own right, but far less interesting than what the other two went on to do, which by now you've hopefully figured out was a weird little prog thing called The Mars Volta.

     Fast forward ten years or so, and The Mars Volta has been pretty prolific, as far as it goes in modern music:  counting March’s Noctourniquet, they've put out six (!) full lengths since 2003's debut De-Loused in the Comatorium, and each is just that much stranger than the last. Noctourniquet, however, seems so far a little more interesting to me than the band's last couple of outings. Things can still get pretty weird and spaced out, the guys in the band are all still great musicians (and that's including a new face or two in the line-up since their last time in the studio), and Bixler-Zavala still has the vocal capabilities of some strange bastard child of Geddy Lee and Mariah Carey, but the material seems just a little bit more focused, or maybe more organized, this time around. Arrangements are still complex, and likely still not everybody's cup of tea, but the mix isn't over-dense and in-your-face 100% of the time, like it has been on albums past. Not every song is noodly and epic, and tracks are a little more stripped back in places. There's a bit of variety here, too: "Aegis" oscillates between a dreamy, video-gamey sounding verse and a more driving, in-your-face-style rock chorus; lead single “The Malkin Jewel” spends most of its time sounding a little White Stripesy (or Black Keysy, if that’s more your thing); "In Absentia" takes a little bit to get its breakbeat*** engine going before trading it in for moody keyboard chords and reverb-soaked vocal layers. Cool stuff, once you sink your teeth into it. All in all, I’m digging Noctourniquet more than I have any Mars Volta album in a while. Of course, this could just be a result of listening to a lot of this album while writing this, and having it fresh in my mind. I guess a trip through The Mars Volta’s back catalogue is in order.

     Alright, enough of me for one day. I’ve got some latin-influenced acid-prog records to put on. Homework assignments for you: go over to youtube and have a listen to one (or better yet, all) of the tracks I mentioned in the previous paragraph and see if anything strikes your fancy. But first, if you're new to The Mars Volta, do me the personal favour of first listening (in this order) to "Son et lumiere" and "Inertiatic ESP", the first two tracks from De-Loused in the Comatorium, so you can get a sense of where they started before you hear how far they've come. For that matter, since it's youtube, and it's free, have a listen to anything from Relationship of Command (especially "Arcarsenal", "One Armed Scissor" and ""), and also something like "Assemble the Empire" or "Cut Your Ribbon" from Sparta's first album Wiretap Scars, and then you'll have at least a small sample of the tasty goodness that was At The Drive-In as well as the differently-flavoured-but-also-delicious goodness that is The Mars Volta (oh, and you'll have heard Sparta too, but we're not really talking about them today, are we?)

     Questions? Comments? Complaints? Come on people, it’s 2012, by this point in your Internet careers you know where to put them. Oh, and I promise, next time will be heavier, don’t you worry. I’ve already got plans...









*(Don't even get me started on this genre-label; that's a whole other blog post...)
** (Maybe I watch too much TV and movies, but I'm a big believer in the idea that the music we listen to forms a cliched sounding "soundtrack to our lives", and the corollary that the soundtracks to the important parts of our lives are likewise important. Maybe I'll do a post about the soundtracks to my life...)
***(if breakbeat is even the right word. Maybe it’s not. You tell me!)