The Mars Volta The Mars Volta LP

TAS Rated 3.5/5 Music, 4/5 Sonics in the January 2023 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

Breaking a decade of omertà, The Mars Volta reawaken from their lengthy hiatus with an eponymous album that radically reshapes their paradigm. The 2022 album shakes loose some of The Mars Volta's long-standing shibboleths, fearlessly defying all expectations and categorizations. Instead, The Mars Volta pulses with subtle brilliance, Caribbean rhythms underpinning sophisticated, turbulent songcraft. This is The Mars Volta at their most mature, most concise, most focused. Their sound and fury channeled to greatest effect, The Mars Volta finds guitarist/composer Omar Rodríguez-López's subterranean pop melodies driving singer/lyricist Cedric Bixler-Zavala's dark sci-fi tales of the occult and malevolent governments. Distilling all the passion, poetry and power at their fingertips, The Mars Volta is the most exciting and accessible music the group has ever recorded.

Founded in 2001, The Mars Volta is best known for their energy-driven live shows and their incorporation of various genres of music including progressive rock, krautrock, jazz fusion and Latin American music. In 2009 the band won a Grammy for "Best Hard Rock Performance" for their song "Wax Simulacra."

British rockers the Mars Volta have made a pop album, with Cedric Bixler-Avala telling NME (and fans), 'Don't get too comfortable with your favorite era, because by the time you like it, we're already moving on.' On their first record in a decade, Bixler-Zavala and partner Omar Rodriguez-Lopez have moved on considerably, drawing on such pop influences as Van Morrison, David Bowie, and Peter Gabriel, as well as Puerto Rican singer and songwriter Rosalia. This softer musical about-face may surprise many fans, since this duo has flirted with hardcore, prog, dub, psychedelic rock, avant-jazz, and funk. But bringing a progressive edge to pop seems like a comfortable fit—romance is on their minds... Diehard fans might skip this one, but if they do, they'll miss a soulful, more mature Mars Volta that leans heavily on sentimentality.