DE-LOUSED IN THE COMATORIUM

TMV is presenting on their first full-length release a kind of concept album which is supposed to tell us the story about the suicide of a friend of the band after he's fallen into coma. From the first note on this record one can realize that this is not the kinda of Prog, we are used to from whatever sub-genre, this is something completely else, well maybe one could call it Post-Rock meets hard alternative rock with hints of 70's Prog.

Starting with electronic sounds in Radiohead style followed by thunderstorm-like guitars and drums in the short introduction "Son et Lumiere " the laser is arriving at "Inertiatic Esp" which sounds like a combination of modern alt. rock with traditional prog. In "Roulette Dares" one gets hints to Post-Punk band Muse not only due to the vocal style, but as well nice guitar lines without any distortion, really a rather good mix of different styles in some way though being initially not that "my cup of tea". " Tira Me a las Arañas" is a rather short piece with odd acoustic guitar and some electronic effects. "Drunkship Of Lanterns" and "Eriatarka" are both sounding very quirky and weird having great guitar play and drumming. "Cicatriz ESP" is the longest track on here with 12+ minutes and though starting in a basically grunge rock vein it has some nice and versatile instrumental section later on. But unfortunately as well an ambient electronic one in between that is a bit too much extended for my taste.In "This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed" there are some references for old school prog to find like the Fripp-ish guitar. "Televators" is almost a fully "acoustic" song with some bongo percussion. Last song "Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt" could be described again as a sort of sophisticated alt. rock showing great guitar work by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez.

As a SUMMARY I've to say that TMV's music sounds very fresh, modern and absolutely progressive in the real literal sense though I've to admit I did not like it that much in the beginning.

edited 7/20/2006