I'm going throwback Tuesday with this week's Album of the Week post, taking you right back to the early days of the blog for this week's pick. In trying to recommend an album each week, I'm trying to pick something that has enough meat on its bones to stand up to repeated listens.
The ideal Album of the Week should in fact not only stand up to repeated listening but actually reward it, revealing new facets and aspects with every time through. One of the very first bands I wrote about two years ago has a back catalogue that includes several such albums, but as far as The Mars Volta is concerned, I really think you're best served to start at the start.
De-loused in the Comatorium is still, in my opinion, the band's best work. Even if you knew At the Drive-In and the story of its demise and the band's it spawned, you still couldn't have been ready for the style of high-energy salsa prog Omar and Cedric brewed up in De-loused. Later albums got further and further out there, to the point that "prog" sometimes veered into "wankery", but De-loused struck the perfect balance of focus and meandering jamitude.
I know I say this all the time, but this really is a case of if you're already a fan it's probably time you revisited this record, and if you're not it's probably time you got familiar. Mars Volta fans who got on board later in the band's career take special note: this is the band in its prime. If you don't know this album, you need to, so study up this week. It'll be on the quiz.
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