AMPUTECHTURE

The Mars Volta. What a strange and unique band! How I wish they would reform, and share more delights with us after a string of fantastic albums, culminating in the magnificent Noctourniquet. Today however, I tried for the hundredth time to sit through Amputechture. This album starts well, but is their only release that I just cannot get too fond of. It's a mess. Songs that sound unnecessarily and awkwardly stretched so far that they no longer make any coherent resemblance to a tune. Widdly guitar that sounds like Robert Fripp during the Discipline era, but off his head on something illegal. Singing that does not work with the guitar. Noise. I think the plan for this album was to see how far they could push their sound, but they went too far.