The Mars Volta

Finally, after exams, a lack of music, a and lack of sleep, I walk into my house, weary at first. I change into my house-clothes (something I call the clothes I wear at home) and gobble down a plateful of nourishing-things.

And then, I sit on the computer for a half-hour, completely lost in the music I needed for so long, diving into the harmony, the dissonancy, the crazy drum fills. Limewire, lying somewhere on the taskbar, with only a few songs in it, and the few, the only songs I listen to, for refugee from going study-crazy.

The Mars Volta.



They are everything I love. Brilliant music, just like that of Norma Jean, except they're rock, they don't scream; awesome lyrics, cryptic and vocabulary-filled, and traces of a foregin language; constructive guitar, exhilirating drums, and at the risk of sounding preachy, I must say these guys have really done what a band should do.

The Mars Volta.

The band is an extensive one, and they make use of many instruments, and implement them in their music. Here's the current lineup :

Omar Rodriguez Lopez - Composer, Guitar, synthesizers, production (2001 - Current)
Cedric Bixler Zavala - Lyrics, Vocals (2001 - Current)
Isaiah "Ikey" Owens - Keyboards (2001 - Current)
Juan Alderete - Bass (2003 - Current)
Thomas Pridgen - Drums (2007 - Current)
Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez - Percussion, synthesizers (2004 - Current)
Adrian Terrazas-Gonzales - Flute, Tenor Saxophone, Bass Clarinet and additional wind & percussion instruments (2004 in studio, 2005 in show - Current)
Paul Hinojos - Guitar, Sound Manipulation (On Stage 2003-2004, Joined Officially 2005 - Current)

As you can see, with the involvement of so many different sounds, the band is really original. There is no other band I can compare them to. Under genre, I can't really classify them, but they do come under Progressive Rock, Neo-psychedelia and Experimental Rock. I would personally put them under Progressive.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez are the heart and soul of the band, respectively, interchangeably. They compose all the songs, which is indeed a very commendable task, because I don't know how they do it. In their album Amputechture , they state that "The partnership between Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & Cedric Bixler-Zavala is The Mars Volta. These compositions are then performed by The Mars Volta Group"

Even their band name has a story to it.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala says that

" The Volta is taken from a Federico Fellini book about his films, what he characterizes as a changing of scene, or a turnaround; a new scene to him is called Volta. Y'know, changing of time and the changeover. And Mars, we're just fascinated by science-fiction so and it's something that ultimately looked as in anything I write, its meaning is always up to the listener. As the way we write songs and words, if it looks great on paper then to us it's like painting, so if it looks good meaning the second then people usually have a better interpretation than we ever would. "

In Roman mythology, Mars is the god of war, and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez therefore says that The Mars Volta are the bringers of peace.

Here's an excerpt from one of their extensive range of lyrics :

Are they gone are they gone
Stung the slang of a gallows bird
Rationed a dead letter pure
Trackmarked amoeba lands craft
Cartwheel of scratches
Dress the tapeworm as pet
Tentacles smirk please
Flinched the cocooned meat
Infra-recon forgets
Now there are those who find
Comfort in the breathing
Wrong-is it wrong
It houses the watchful eyes
They're panting in a pattern in droves
Are they gone

Eriatarka - The Mars Volta

I don't know how they do that either.

The bottom line is, you have to hear these guys.

Eriatarka
Cut That City
The Widow
This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed
Televators
Tetragrammaton
Concertina
Drunkship of Lanterns

Download them right away, and be pleasantly surprised.