I hate Pitchfork. In a
lot of ways that is an overstatement and in all reality what I really hate
about Pitchfork is their album reviews. I visit their site everyday to
see what is going on in the music world and the one thing that I always make
sure to ignore is their damn album reviews. I will read everything
else on the site, though, mainly it is because since they are so renown they
have access to just about everything they want access too and in turn they
always get a lot of great interviews and such. Anyways, yesterday I
made a visit to their site (why is it so slow?) and the first thing that I
noticed was that they had a review of the new Mars Volta album,
Amputechture. I immediately told myself to ignore it and to just
read the news and then move on to something else or their was a good chance
my head would explode from all of the retarded statements that the review
would undoubtedly contain. I clicked on the thing anyways and the
inevitable happened, my head exploded. Now I will admit upfront that I
am a big TMV fan but I will also say that I have no problem explaining to
you in full depth as to why Frances The Mute was one of the most
pretentious albums of the last few years so don't think that I am some
fanboy whining about a bad review. I could care less about bad reviews
for bands that I like but what causes my head to explode is when a review is
full of total crap. I have an extremely hard time wrapping my head
around the fact that the guy doesn't understand why the album sounds
like a Mars Volta album. He mentions the length of the songs, the
abstract lyrics, Cedric's vocal style, and the music over and over again as
if after three full length albums he still hasn't caught on that this is NOT
At The Drive-In. Outside of noting how well the band sounds like
themselves he fails to mention how great of an album that Amputechture
really is. In all ways possible it brings the Mars Volta back down to
Earth and re-establishes them as one of the premiere prog rock bands around
today. I think after Deloused in the Comatorium proved to be a
hit the band felt the need to come out with something bigger and better and
what they ended up with was Frances The Mute, which was a big fat
pretentious album that was so full of ambient fuzz that it didn't even have
room for it's title track. This album is a great mix of both of their
previous full lengths and it is nice to see the band make a quick return to
form (FTM is only a year old). I don't know if this is even in
my Top 10 albums of the year but it certainly is not the 3.5 that Pitchfork
gave it, I would say a solid 8.5. In any case I put up my favorite
track off the new disc and I highly recommend giving it a listen.
:The Mars Volta - Day Of The Baphomets:
That Pitchfork guy kind of liked this song but felt that it took too many
shifts. Once again for anyone who has ever heard this band that is
nothing new but the difference between this and their last outing is that
the song starts moving and then keeps it going without dipping into 5
minutes of noise. The drumming, which was done by Jon Theodore before
he left the band, is as fantastic as always and the guitar parts are as
psychedelic as usual. There is also a number of other trademark TMV
parts in the song such as different noise effects, some latin style bongos,
and groovy base lines. Mostly importantly though is how great Cedric's
voice is in this song. He has always done a good job at being the
centerpiece of this band but in this his vocals feel more energized then
just about everything else he has done. This is one of my favorite
Mars Volta songs of all time and if you have a few minutes (Okay, 12) and an
open mind that this is not At The Drive-In then download and enjoy.
For a good time check out that guy's review
here. I warn you that towards the end
of the review he somehow manages to sneak in some sort attempt to be funny
by way of Fred Durst, I told you it was retarded. As my friend Brett
would say; that guy can suck a fat one.
-
John Laird -
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