Longtime readers will hopefully be aware of my love of The Mars Volta, but they'll also hopefully remember how often I've talked about the fine line between jammed-out space prog and unfocused meandering mess. Your Throwback Thursday song this week rides that line nicely.
To get at said song, we've got to throw it back to 2008's The Bedlam in Goliath, an album that rides that same line a little bit. Previous album Amputechture had a tendency to step over that line, but tempered this with more moments of instrumental brilliance. Follow-up Octahedron was a little too loose and free-form, with too much space for live work and not enough goodness on the record itself.
But Bedlam strikes a better balance, with tracks like "Cavalettas" leading the charge. Conventional song structures and instrumental choices aren't exactly de rigeur, but neither are some of the indulgent, extraneous passages that really weigh down a lot of later Mars Volta stuff. Agree with me? Disagree? Thoughts of any kind? Comment upon it, son!
Showing posts with label Octahedron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Octahedron. Show all posts
Saturday, 1 August 2015
Thursday, 1 January 2015
Monday: The Mars Volta - Cotopaxi
We're continuing to battle the clock here at Loud Noises, and by my watch it's time for a song for this past Monday. We're almost there, people!
As it so often does around here, Monday means alliteration this week, in the form of a Mars Volta Monday. Usually, as you should know by now, I'd be more likely to pick something from the band's earlier work, since that's the stuff I both like the best and think is objectively the best quality. But today I'm going with something a little later in the band's catalogue for your Monday Mars Volta song.
That song is "Cotopaxi" from 2009's Octahedron, which normally I would consider to be one of The Mars Volta's less cohesive, less focused works. But at less than four minutes, "Cotopaxi" doesn't have time to wander or overstay its welcome, and it's all the better for it. Check it out if you want example of a later Mars Volta effort that's still concise and coherent.
As it so often does around here, Monday means alliteration this week, in the form of a Mars Volta Monday. Usually, as you should know by now, I'd be more likely to pick something from the band's earlier work, since that's the stuff I both like the best and think is objectively the best quality. But today I'm going with something a little later in the band's catalogue for your Monday Mars Volta song.
That song is "Cotopaxi" from 2009's Octahedron, which normally I would consider to be one of The Mars Volta's less cohesive, less focused works. But at less than four minutes, "Cotopaxi" doesn't have time to wander or overstay its welcome, and it's all the better for it. Check it out if you want example of a later Mars Volta effort that's still concise and coherent.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)