MetalSucks

Last year Baroness played a truly stellar set that left me weak in the knees; this year, despite having had actual knee surgery back in April, I felt pretty damn sturdy after dem “stoner-metal-meets-Ford-truck-jingle” Georgians finished their consistent yet largely humdrum set a couple weeks ago.

As many of y’all have commented recently, this year’s Blue Record is somewhat of a step down from 2007’s mostly strong Red Album (which in itself was a dilution in certain ways from the band’s prior EPs First and Second), and as can be expected, the live set has slightly suffered as a result. [Axl strongly disagrees. - Ed.]

Thankfully my assessment has more to do with the waning quality of songs/songwriting on the new album record — the band’s execution of said songs was pretty impeccable, and the energy was ferocious. But is that enough to sustain a whole set? Well, not for me — about halfway through I started getting bored by the even-keeled-ness of the sound — but I also feel compelled to recognize that the majority of the crowd seemed to by-and-large eat up every moment.

So who’s right? Well, as we hopefully learned last week, music criticism is not about right and wrong (despite some folks’ insistence on deeming others *wrong* for expressing their opinions, pedantic as they may be). I will continue to wish Baroness the best, and I truly hope that the next offering blows all previous efforts away. But I’d be lying if I said I’m not somewhat skeptical. Oh well — they can’t possibly fuck up a winning streak nearly as much as these watered-down dudes.

ANYWAY — the real question is, what be’d my favorite live set of the year?

Click to read more…

Last week was a ginormous week for new metal releases, and with new ones from Killswitch and Suicide Silence this week promises to be the same. Topping last week’s crop was Dream Theater’s Black Clouds & Silver Linings which debuted at #6 on the Soundscan Charts. Wait a minute… Dream Theater debuted at #6?? Holy fuckity-fuck. Darkest Hour, The Mars Volta, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster and Goatwhore also had strong debuts. Click through for chart positions and sales numbers.

Click to read more…

[Update: Jim Ward tells Buzzgrinder a reunion isn't in the cards for him.]

Call it the latest in a long-line of inevitable reunions — At The Drive-In may be satiating my wish to get back together, reports ChartAttack.com:

Former At The Drive-In frontman and current Mars Volta singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala hinted that an ATDI reunion may be his next on his agenda in a recent interview with Drowned In Sound.

“We’ve been making amends with a lot of the members and giving some really good talks with them,” said Bixler-Zavala. “I wouldn’t mind it.”

Click to read more…

Today’s release finds Omar, Cedric, and Juan from The Mars Volta teaming up with Zach Hill and Jonathan Hischke from Hella; I haven’t heard the album yet, but I suspect most fans of TMV will appreciate……here’s the first YouTube ‘trailer’ for Cryptomnesia:

The Mars Volta will also release their 5th studio album, entitled Octahedron, in North America on June 23rd and the rest of the world the day before — get psyched!!

You can catch the prog-rock posse extraordinaire at Bonneroo in Tennessee on June 13th, San Fran’s Outside Lands Festival on August 29th, and at various dates in Europe in between — check out the band’s MySpace page for dates and locations.

And not that we really care about the Grammies (read my recent round-up send-up here), but after the jump I’m including the Volta’s acceptance speech from this year’s ceremony (when they beat out Judas Priest, Rob Zombie, Disturbed, and Motley Crue, who they referenced backstage).

-KW

Click to read more…

I was pretty surprised when I heard that The Mars Volta, who have previously sold out Terminal 5 (a huge new-ish venue in Manhattan) and are scheduled to play the Hammerstein Ballroom (another enormous Manhattan venue), are also playing at the much more intimate Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey on this tour.

Say what you will about the band — they are indeed quite a live experience to behold and have clearly captured the attention and imagination of a myriad of many serious music lovers in their 7 year run for good reason.

And so on September 18th, while Vince and Axl are giving each other h.j.s in the back row at the Opeth/High On Fire/Nachmystium extravaganza, me and the Gibbler will brave smelly NJ in the name of fiery PROG. A chance to see a band up close that usually only plays sold-out shows in gigantic venues doesn’t come along so often; I believe there are still tickets left, so don’t delay, and let’s rockit!!

See you in the stony non-pit…

[read my Sunday Spotlight on The Mars Volta and check out plenty of their wicked tunes]

-KW

The big Tuesday for politics may be next week, but today is the first important release date of the year for metal. Let’s take a look at what you can now easily pirate buy at your local record store on this fine day:

• Stonerider – Three Legs of Trouble (Trustkill) – Southern-fried rawk n’ roll, Crowes Mule & Roses, if you will.
• Bullet for My Valentine – Scream Aim Fire (Jive / SonyBMG) – One of the biggest releases so far this year, coming from Welsh second-gen metalcore quartet previously known as nu-metallers Jeff Killed John. (Read our review here.)
• The Mars Volta – The Bedlam in Goliath (Universal) – Fourth album from progiffied funk spazz freaks, ex-At the Drive In. (Read our detailed retrospective on the band.)
• Tiles – Fly Paper (InsideOut) – Progressive hard rockers from Detroit who have been round a while, and have toured with the likes of Dream Theater.
• Airbourne – Runnin’ Wild (Roadrunner) – Australian AC/DC-influenced AC/DC rock that sounds like AC/DC. Nuff said.
• Steve Stevens – Memory Crash (Magna Carta) – Solo shredfest from ex-Vince Neil and longtime Billy Idol axeslinger.
• Course of Nature – Damaged (Silent Majority) – Nickelcreedbenjaminseetherhinderback.
• Protest the Hero, Fortress (Vagrant) – Post-prog, shred-tastic, metal and hardcore-influenced amazingness. One of the most important records of 2008 so far.

With Cedric singing on a few of the tracks (and appearances from other members of The Mars Volta, including recently-departed drummer Jon Theodore), Omar’s “solo” record Se Dice Bisonte, No Búfalo plays very much like a collection of MV outtakes (it even has a chilled-out version of a new MV track “Goliath”, which is here entitled “Rapid Fire Tollbooth” — I suspect this version came first, and served as a sketch for the MV rendition). But there’s a bit more headspace twinkled in between the actual tunes than usual.

This album, one of four full-lengths written and recorded by Rodriguez-Lopez whilst living in Amsterdam in November 2005, was conceived around the same time as The Bedlam In Goliath, and was inspired by the Jorge Hernandez Aldana film, El Búfalo de la Noche (as well as plenty of hallucinogens, I’m sure); which is where the title for Se Dice originates. Omar also composed a soundtrack to the film, which will feature contributions by The Mars Volta.

Calibration (Is Pushing Luck and Key Too Far) , the prolific afro’d Latino mastermind’s next album, due out one week from today, is meant to be quite electronica-heavy, and will be followed later this year by an album of remixes.

Dude keeps busy, that’s for sure!

-KW

OMAR RODRIGUEZ-LOPEZ – “Rapid Fire Tollbooth”

OMAR RODRIGUEZ-LOPEZ – “Boiling Death Request a Body to Rest Its Head On”

OMAR RODRIGUEZ-LOPEZ – “La Tirania de la Tradicion”

all from Se Dice Bisonte, No Búfalo (2007)

Visit Omar on MySpace (official)

Visit Omar on MySpace (unofficial)

Read my massive Sunday Spotlight on The Mars Volta

I mean, really — come on. There is no other truly progressive contemporary rock band unafraid to make such new sounds and defy all sense of traditional song structure that is this much in the public eye. Any which way you look at it, that’s pretty damn impressive. The band’s first full-length album, De-loused In The Comatorium, captured the intrigue of just about everyone you know, and for good reason: way back then (2003) it was fresh, something we had never heard before, like a latino Led Zeppelin from outer space. Fucking amazing.

And then, almost immediately, The Mars Volta evolved at ludicrous speed and became extreme-art spazz prog noisters on ther next record Frances the Mute, with the last song clocking in at just over 30 bloody minutes — goddamn. Understandably, many people were turned off by the ultra-prog/experimental nature of Frances, but several listens later, the album is undeniably amazing (at times) — I just don’t think that most people gave it enough shots. But there are rewards aplenty, and every song is densely layered and uniquely structured; a thinking man’s emotional/loud music project, appealing rock in so many ways.

Even the recording was its own controlled experiment — each of the players specific parts was tracked separately, forcing every member of the band to have faith in the collage-to-follow and complete song to emerge on the other side. A method occasionally employed in the past by Miles Davis, the results were slightly uneven, but the overall concepts came through quite clearly, and the album plays extremely solidly (never disjointed, as one might expect). A valiant sophomore effort that never once tried to emulate the tone or song structures from the first record but instantly surpassed it for anyone willing to really listen, that album at that point from this band is a testament to the ongoing artistry of The Mars Volta from the beginning until now — there is nothing to invariably compare them to; each record is its own concept and creation, proving just how important it is when experiencing an artist’s next project to release any previously preconceived notions and let the new work unfold itself to you.

Amputechture, their third full-length studio offering, ought best be approached in this way (5 of the 8 tracks are 9+ minutes long, all the way up to 16 at the lengthiest) — almost everyone I’ve talked to on the subject can’t stand the damn thing, but again I suspect that very few were willing to listen to it repeatedly enough to soak in the sopping thick songs. And I admit it was difficult for me as well at first, but I have come to realize that the band has evolved in an extremely natural and perfectly impressive way throughout their career, and Amputechture is currently my most listened-to of the three. Yes, it’s largely because I basically wore the shit out of De-loused for a couple years and am now simply happy to continue to get to know (and thereby appreciate) the more recent MV recordings. But that said — Amputechture is really incredible, and if you don’t think so, you truly need to twist a J and make nice with that album. The more I listen and let myself trust the tunes, the more I want to revisit the whole damn thing in one go instead of skipping around as I often do. Understandably hard to commit to the album as a whole, but no reason to write off its abundant strengths.

And so now we are upon the next Mars Volta album, The Bedlam In Goliath, due out on Tuesday. And what less should we expect at this point than something revolutionary? I for one can’t wait, and have full well faith that this shit is gonna explode, unevenly or not.

Click to read more…

So I loved, loved, loved The Mars Volta’s first album De-loused in the Comatorium when it came out. I then went to see the band that summer on a sweltering hot, 95 degree day at St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit and the experience was nothing short of cathartic. The band was on fire, and with a few hundred sweaty, hot people absolutely loving the music it all felt like a big family.

Then came Frances The Mute. Except for a couple of songs… uh, what?  The album was too ambitious, full of extended, extended prog jams that went nowhere fast. I gave the band another shot, going to see them live at the much-bigger State Theater, and boy did that show suck. “Snooze factory” would be a colossal understatement.

I tried again with last year’s Amputechture. Yawn.

So apparently they have a new album coming out, The Bedlam in Goliath, due January 29, 2008. I’m not getting my hopes up, but the first single is pretty cool and the video, below, is somewhat clever. Maybe the album will be alright?

-VN

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/09VUT6MrCKc" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]