Punk rock started in 1976. ItÕs almost 30 years later, and you know something? Some of us donÕt want to pay our hard-earned bread to see a buncha yobbos in T-shirts drinking beer onstage and
grinning like regular joes as they play the same three chords, in roughly the same progressions, as any beginning guitar player. Sometimes, we want a bit more. A bit more proficiency, a bit of ambition, some
exploration. Maybe even some grandeur. POMP. Spectacle.
Perhaps itÕs the Mars Volta (and their sillier corollary, The Darkness) whoÕll bring that awestruck feeling back to the masses. Perhaps not Ñ perhaps it really is too late
to erect the wall again. But letÕs just supposeÉwhich is just what guitarist/composer Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez does on his bandÕs Frances the Mute, the new Mars Volta disc. ItÕs a concept album, about what exactly
I couldnÕt tell you, and I think the band likes it that way. Some of it supposedly concerns itself with AIDS Ñ perfect metaphorical stuff for these guys, allowing for an extremely inconclusively worded multipart song
cycle in five sections, spread out over what must be the full 74 minutes a CD can hold. They give their pieces names like ÒCygnusÉVismund CygnusÓ and ÒMiranda That Ghost Just IsnÕt Holy Anymore,Ó with sections
entitled ÒVade Mecum,Ó ÒPour Another IcepickÓ and, need you ask, ÒPisacis (Phra-Men-Ma).Ó Lyrically, unlike musically, itÕs whatÕs between the lines that attempts to speak volumes.
Musically, though, itÕs everything under the prog sun, times 50. ItÕs Yes. ItÕs Rush. Mahogany Rush, too. ItÕs Metallica. ItÕs Crimson.
ItÕs Neu. Perhaps more than anything, itÕs Pink Floyd circa Umma Gumma and Atom
Heart Mother. ItÕs pretentious as hell, and clearly, thatÕs the precise, full-on point. On the surface you hear a lot of seriously impassioned, gonad-grabbing Õ70s-rock wails, and very well sung, too, by Cedric Bixler
Zavala. Interestingly, ZavalaÕs insistent caterwauling about a jillion tiny obscurities and moods and atmospheres and smells and prickly feelings and cobwebs and the moon and disease and so on doesnÕt wear on
you. That says something. Maybe itÕs Ôcause he gives the impression that heÕs telling a story, and Ôcause Rodriguez-LopezÕs music is so varied and surprising: metallic staccato juggernauts of drums/guitars/bass,
liberally laced with Õ70s Brit-jazz (Soft Machine) horns, violas, Ôtrons and, significantly, huge portions of Mexican and Cuban musical shades and styles.
ItÕs when they let these Latin sections or dolorous prog-jazz weirdness sections go on for such a loooong time that you sense a kind of integrity and seriousness of purpose about the Mars Volta. WhatÕs really
interesting is that neither these extended non-typically-rocking passages or the inevitable returns to heavy-band machine gun carnage seem to blur interest. (That is, if youÕre someone who actually likes to sit
and listen to albums all the way through, like a lot of the original progressive rock records of the early Ô70s allowed for and encouraged.) To say that this music is ÒoverplayedÓ Ñ a common complaint about MV
from critics who sealed their punk rock- and/or minimalism-inspired minds back in the Ô80s Ñ is way beside the point; this is maximalism, and itÕs supposed to dominate your body and mind, splatter your face,
then melt back down in a big puddle, into which you can gaze and see a reflection of yourselfÉIÕd argue that its proper reception will depend on how you much sleep you got, how much of the good stuff you
imbibed/smoked, and ÐÐ more importantly ÐÐ how young you are. Because, technically speaking, itÕs working with your levels of testosterone or ovum.
These rather amazing quagmires of sound were most fortunate to be crafted by an obsessive weirdo like Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez, someone
who is just consumed with his vision, and the moral of the story is that, actually, in rock, any kind of obsession is where itÕs at, no matter the ÒpretensionÓ of the outcome. Surely weÕve all realized by now that
one never really says anything in ÒrockÓ music by holding back oneÕs real impulses; not holding back Ñ and risking ridicule Ñ that means being honest, just as ÒhonestÓ as Bruce Springsteen.
Well, no need to defend it, I donÕt think. But hereÕs another moral to the story: Without a doubt, a younger generation of musicians in recent years have radically
upped the ante, as players, songwriters and real musical imaginers. The Mars Volta are 100 times the band that Metallica ever was, not just technically but in the realm of artistic ambition. There is something
undeniably thrilling about any group of young musicians who are so focused on what theyÕre doing, so into it, and youÕre hearing it and grasping that what theyÕve accomplished has taken an enormous amount
of work Ñ discipline Ñ and theyÕre carrying it out with precision and guts. That the Mars Volta play the fuck out of these well-constructed and amazingly shaded pieces is just plain inspiring.
You hear a lot of ÒseriousÓ musicians going on about the importance of paying attention to the space between the notes. Fact is, some music depends a lot on
cramming in every note youÕve ever heard, in a desperate, obsessive, mad rush. The Mars Volta, like other young musicians, shouldnÕt worry too much about the space between notes. At this point, they do
what they do because, sounds like, itÕs what they were put here on Earth to do. Which gives us the opportunity to say, ÒWhew. The fuck was that?Ó
