AMPUTECHTURE

Only one year after Frances The Mute, the Mars Volta, maybe a little looser for not writing a concept album, and not having to create a story during the album, do again a powerful and chaotic record, with incredible musicianship and vocals.

As usual, the album starts slow, Vicarious Atonement is a beautiful track almost ambient music, with beautiful vocals and towards the end begin the psychedelic effects to open for Tetragrammaton, a truly spectacular song in all senses, it opens with a wall of sound with a great riff on it, then it slows to a warm ambient, really quiet, with a soft vocal melody until the powerful chorus and solos come in, but the really fantastic only comes at about 8 minutes, an out-of-this-world explosion with a fantastic solo which takes the song to one of the most addicting voice melody ever, led by Cedric's angry voice switching with falsetto, one of the most well-constructed song ever.

In a slow rhythm comes Vermicide, a 4 minute song with a really catchy chorus, a very single-like song, nothing new on The Mars Volta here but a very pleasant song, from almost nowhere kicks in Meccamputechture with its frantic beginning until it explodes in a fantastic chaotic riff, this is the toughest music in the album to get into, the vocals aren't melodic at all and the music is instable and chaotic, but when it grows on you you can understand perfectly this glorious psychedelic trip.

Asilos Magdalena is the acoustic song on the album, a really strange song, creepy, paranoid, dark, and you got to give credit for this, in the previous albums the quiet songs were always the singles and the most easy-listening songs (Televators and The Widow), this time they didn't repeat themselves and made the quiet song the creepiest possible, in general the song is very pleasant. Viscera Eyes kicks in with a powerful riff accompanied by really strange vocals in Spanish until the English comes in a much better melody and very addicting with an equally addicting chorus, meanwhile comes a psychedelic noise solo until it breaks in an incredible groove on the bass, followed by one of the most amazing solos in The Mars Volta or ever, it gains incredible speed until it breaks in a fantastic moment with a groovy soft voice, one of the greatest moments of the album.

Day Of The Baphomets comes in with a Latin rhythm accompanying a fantastic bass solo, accelerating until it explodes in a spacial riff with a totally chaotic ambient, totally destructive, between solos of brass and organ the song evolves to a fantastic chorus, incredible congas solo, incredibly addictive falsetto vocal melodies and of course tons of guitar soloing.

We are already tired when El Ciervo Vulnerado starts, I understand the mirrored album thing, but this song is a real filler, it's a pale imitation of the first song on the album.

It's noticeable that the Mars Volta by doing an album with 3 quiet songs wanted to make it the most hard to listen possible, and they did it greatly, it's a really difficult album to get into, with millions of solos, by all kinds of instruments, a very complex album, fantastic as usual for Mars Volta