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The Mars Volta: De-Loused In The Comatorium
Son Et Lumière
Inertiatic ESP
Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)
Tira Me A Las Arañas
Drunkship Of Lanterns
Eriatarka
Cicatriz ESP
This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed
Televators
Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt
At the dawn of the new millennium, At The Drive-In were one of the most exciting bands on the planet. Their 2000 masterpiece Relationship of Command had brought post-hardcore, art punk, cryptic lyrical flights of fancy and utterly chaotic live shows to a rock scene that had become bloated with childishly wacky pop-punk and dunderheaded nu metal.
But it wasn’t to be. A mere 14 months after Relationship of Command’s release and just as it looked like alternative music had their new figureheads, they split up. Physically exhausted, bored of the music industry game and sick of the sight of each other, At the Drive-In were gone.
Unexpectedly, two-fifths of At the Drive-In would come back with something even more subversive and unusual than the band they had become known for, and The Mars Volta‘s De-Loused In The Comatorium still sounds as forward-thinking, as unique and as unpredictable as it did in 2003.
It received 9/10 in NME, whilst Uncut said “Imagine a jam session between King Crimson, Fugazi and ’70s Miles. Now imagine it working. That’s the Mars Volta” in their 4-star review. It also gained a full 5Ks from Kerrang! who claimed The Mars Volta had “seized their moment to change the face of rock and roll… whether they’re successful or not is irrelevant; it’s the taking part that counts.”
Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.
Other albums released in June 2003
- You Gotta Go There to Come Back – Stereophonics
- In the Pursuit of Leisure – Sugar Ray
- My Private Nation – Train
- Shootenanny! – Eels
- Trouble No More – John Mellencamp
- The Phantom Agony – Epica
- St. Anger – Metallica
- Hail to the Thief – Radiohead
- Universal Hall – The Waterboys
- Blackout – Dropkick Murphys
- Everything Must Go – Steely Dan
- Welcome Interstate Managers – Fountains of Wayne
- The Vertigo of Bliss – Biffy Clyro
- Arachnophobiac – Michael Schenker Group
- Decoration Day – Drive-By Truckers
- Ghost of a Rose – Blackmore’s Night
- Happy Songs for Happy People – Mogwai
- Unhallowed – The Black Dahlia Murder
- Welcome to Blue Island – Enuff Z’nuff
What they said…
“Beware: Deloused In The Comatorium is unashamedly prog. Some of the songs go on for millennia. Interwoven with instrumental tangents that try every possible combination of sounds, india-rubber guitar strings are tangled with flickering, fibre-optic strands of electronica. It’s complex, but organic and it’s enthralled with a definite sense of joyous emotion.” (Drowned In Sound)
“In the ’70s, people used to put Pink Floyd on headphones, crank the volume and go Oh, wow.’ With the Mars Volta, the reaction is more along the lines of ‘Goddamn!’ Their Rick Rubin–produced debut roars like Led Zeppelin, churns like King Crimson and throbs like early Santana – sometimes all in the same song.” (Blender)
“Even a semi-monastic hour (and 51 seconds) of listening reveals a satisfyingly twisted universe within these Texas oddballs’ first full-length suite, De-Loused in the Comatorium. Emerging from the vitriolic ashes of Bixler-Zavala and virtuoso guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López’s art-punk project At the Drive-In, the group manically aligns triumphant metal, psychedelic rock and Latin jazz.” (Rolling Stone)
What you said…
Gino Sigismondi: In 2003, before literally every album ever recorded was instantly available to stream, you had a take a chance on buying the CD unheard and then see if you like it. Like I expect most of us here, I mostly found about new music from magazine reviews!
Back then, I was an avid reader of the now-defunct Blender. I appreciated their short, often humorous, and mostly accurate takes on new releases, and their short description of De-Loused in the Comatorium as a punk-influenced cross between Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Santana was all the encouragement I needed.
At The Drive-In was an unknown quantity to me at the time, so I entered into this with no expectations, and found myself blown away. So this is what happens when emo-punk kids discover their dad’s Rush albums! (See also: Coheed and Cambria). It contained all the elements the Blender review promised, the guitar-shredding pomposity of Zep, the psychedelic spaciness of Floyd, while the Santana comparison mostly came by way of the unabashed nods to the Hispanic-American musical heritage (something they lead into even more heavily on follow-up Frances the Mute).
Perhaps most surprising is Flea’s bass playing – there’s nary a pop nor slap to be found, grounding their meandering jams in tasteful, melodic playing. The Mars Volta would never top this, as each subsequent album shifted the balance towards longer, even more meandering “songs” beset by lengthy sound effects-laden interludes and vertigo-inducing syncopations.
In hindsight, this direction should’ve been obvious. I’ve saw them live on this tour, opening for A Perfect Circle, where across a 45-minute set they played a grand total of two songs from De-Loused – mostly bloated with pointless jams. Which is too bad, given the wealth of strong songs here, Drunkship Of Lanterns and the melodic Televators being specific highlights. 9/10 only because the song titles make absolutely no sense. What the hell is a “Cerpin Taxt” anyway? Supposedly a concept album about a close friend who died of a drug overdose, but I’m not sure how anyone would glean that from the word salad of lyrics.
John Davidson: I got this at the time and for the briefest of moments it kinda clicked, but I haven’t listened to it since.
Vibe-wise they have more in common with Muse or Wolfmother than they do with the likes of Dream Theater (Prog metal) or Big Big Train (modern trad prog). It’s a challenging listen but unlike Tool or Mastodon, they never seem to find a melody or a dark propulsive rhythm at the heart of their compositions. The result is a more Jazzy and discordant experience than I normally enjoy. It has its moments – as on Inertiatic ESP – but overall I find the vocals too much of a distraction to fully enjoy the music.
The Mars Volta – Inertiatic ESP (Radio Edit) – YouTube 
Jeff Perry: A very good album. Drunkship Of Lanterns was named the 91st best guitar song of all time by Rolling Stone, and Guitar World named it the 55th best guitar album of all time. Tells you how highly regarded it is. For me, 8.5/10. Mostly great, with some fill that brings the score down a bit.
Denys Denysevych: Frances The Mute or Amputechture are way better.
Matt Roy: Great album. Every track is incredible.
Ben Kiehl: This album rules. One of my favourites.
Mickel Knight: 10/10. Epic. Complex but still with some serious grooves and atmosphere.
Greg Schwepe: I must have rewritten my review for The Mars Volta’s Deloused in the Comatorium in my head 3-4 times while listening to it for the very first time. Kept wavering back and forth on it as each song was completed. I felt like I needed a flower and would pull off the petals one by one; “I like this, I like it not, I like this, I like it not…”
I had never listened to The Mars Volta before and really didn’t know which handy little musical genre box they had been placed in. But found out right away; “Oh…proggy, jazzy, experimental, atmospheric stuff…got it! Let’s listen!”
And so began the push/pull of the album. There were sections of songs I really liked; the frenetic stop/start sections with thrashing guitar. Then the sections that got me wavering; the meandering instrumental sections with little to keep my attention. But as I listened, I was getting the vibe of a few other bands I liked, but nothing was coming to mind. Then one hit me; some of Deloused… sounded a bit like Adrian Belew-era King Crimson (Discipline, Beat). Guessing the drummer had listened to a little Bill Bruford somewhere along the line.
And the theme continued; like that part, really don’t care for that part. So, at that point I was about 50/50 with my overall take on the album. And there are “out there” bands that I really like that The Mars Volta can compare to, but just not enough.
Then the comparison I was looking for hit me. My impression of The Mars Volta was like what I ran into with my first experience with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Kept reading about how Birds Of Fire was a monumental album for many artists, so I figured I’d check it out. John McLaughlin and other high, high calibre musicians, what’s not to like, right? And I ran into the same thing; “OK, kinda like that…that’s kinda weird…” And that’s how Deloused… left me. Kind of on the fence.
The songs and sections of this album I liked, I really liked. The other sections, well, my attention span got real short. 6 out of 10 on this one for me. Now, where’s that flower for that final petal pick…
Philip Qvist: Well, this is a new one to me, and although I have heard of The Mars Volta I don’t think I have bothered to listen to any of their songs – until now, that is.
And my verdict of De-Loused In The Comatorium? Very interesting, and that is both a positive and a negative statement. There is nothing wrong with the musicianship of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and co but the lyrics of Cedric Bixler-Zavala were pretty much incoherent, while his singing also became jarring after a while.
The album started off okay, but by the end I was wishing for it to finish. This is clearly a record that needs quite a few spins before you can do a proper review of it – but I doubt it will grow on me even after that. I have little doubt that many people will like it but, sadly, I’m not one of them. No high marks from me this week.
Charlie Allison: Great album!
Adam McCann: Not for me, never got the hype around it. 21 years on I still don’t get it. There’s plenty of better ‘prog’ around from 21 years ago, this isn’t it sadly.
Dale Munday: Grab your headphones, the only way to listen to this audacious debut from the Mars Volta. When this was released I had only just got into At The Drive-In’s Relationship Of Command album. A classic. So this was something of a surprise, but after a few listens, not too far removed.
Under the pretext of being a prog concept album (Yeah, ok). Typical of a lot of concept albums, not a clue what the story purports to be about. Who cares? It must have taken a lot of time and narcotics to put this together, but the performances are exquisite, with special props to the drumming of Jon Theodore, both frenetic and very nuanced with a great range of playing styles.
I guess this will be easier on the ears if you are a King Crimson fan as opposed to maybe a Kiss fan. It’s all subjective after all.
Nearly forgot to mention the amazing, enigmatic Storm Thorgeson sleeve.
Headphones will make it more rewarding or painful.
Mike Canoe: Given that a lot of modern prog that I dip my ears into sounds similar to De-Loused In The Comatorium, it’s hard to deny the influence of the Mars Volta. I think that when this came out in 2003, I had enough obtuse art rock in my life. It’s also worth remembering that this album came out in the days when you still had to buy a physical product for more money than a month of unlimited streaming.
Would I buy it now? I don’t know but I do enjoy listening to it. The odd time signatures and stop-start dynamics are more palatable to me now than twenty years ago. Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s voice translates an urgency and intensity that resonates, even if I only catch a fourth of the lyrics, much less what the greater concept of the album is supposed to be.
I have a soft spot for the Mars Volta (and the band they sprang from, At The Drive-In) because we share El Paso, Texas roots – even though I lived there when there were still actual drive-ins and both Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López were yet to be born. De-Loused In The Comatorium makes me think they’re a band worth catching up with.
Final score: 6.88 (54 votes cast, total score 372)
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