For punk, metal, or hard rock bands, the unplugged album is the one that shows whether they’ve been succeeding simply on energy and volume or because of real talent. (Anyone who remained a skeptic of Kurt Cobain’s songwriting skills must have been converted by Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged masterpiece.) And Octahedron, a quieter and more subdued Mars Volta album, proves that same fact (if not at the same level as Nirvana) for a band that’s perpetually lived on a knife’s edge of tension. Recorded in less than a month, Octahedron is by no means an unplugged album — it’s not acoustic, it’s not confined to ballads, and it includes consecutive hard rockers in “Cotopaxi” and “Desperate Graves” — but it charts a different direction for the Mars Volta, and proves they don’t need to shuttle between dynamic extremes in order to succeed on an artistic level. – AMG
REVIEW OF REVIEWS
For five albums now Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Savala (for they are the heart of The Mars Volta) have been relentlessly pounding us with their dizzying musical overload — music of such frenzy it read like the musical manifestation of a fly writhing to escape the spider’s web. Something had to give, and on Octahedron they pull back from the brink, employing more diffuse acoustic guitar work over Bixler’s impassioned tongue twister trills. The effect is still the same: this is pure drama out of a crisis and adds a few more shades and colours on the already cramped palette. Too much as ever but still compelling listening.
The disc closes with the manic 1-2 punch of “Copernicus,” which floats into deep electronics, and the cryptic “Luciforms,” with a trippy opening that builds into wah-wah euphoria.
And euphoric is exactly what “Octahedron” is — yet another indispensable entry in The Mars Volta’s already impressive catalogue.
TRACKLIST
1. Since We’ve Been Wrong
2. Teflon Listen
3. Halo of Nembutals
4. With Twilight As My Guide
5. Cotopaxi
6. Desperate Graves
7. Copernicus
8. Luciforms
VIDEOS
BEST SHOTS
Check out more Mars Volta and Bonnaroo 2009 photos at Backstage Gallery.
TOUR DATES
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