Review Summary: Featuring two members from the erstwhile At the Drive In, 'De-Loused in the Comatorium' has a winning mix of song-to-song synergy and fresh ideas that make it arguably the 21st century's first classic album.
'Progressive Rock' can mean either of two things. It can be a synonym for a pretentiously talented swathe of musicians conducting mind-bending experiments in time signature experimentation, melding incredibly disparate genres (jazz-sludge, anyone) for the sake of it and making seven-part concept albums with invented languages and psychological terms and metaphors. It can also mean a group with an over-active imagination, who are disenchanted with the confines of popular music and choose to try and take it to newer, more eclectic heights at the cost of commercial potential and the possible alienating of large numbers of causal music listeners.
That's why 'The Mars Volta's debut album 'De-loused in the Comatorium' stands-out. Springing from the divorce of post-hardcore band At the Drive In, that band's driving forces, the eccentric vocalist Cedric Bixler Zavala and introspective, meditative composer and guitarist Omar Rodriquez-Lopez, took their former bands penchant for experimentation, stretched it almost to breaking point, and brought as close to the mainstream than any Prog band since Genesis. More than that, 'Deloused in the Comatorium' stands out because it is clearly the work of two mushroom-headed geniuses with enough ideas to blanket the music industry for the remainder of the year.
'De-Loused' is a concept album, coined by Bixler Zavala (the lyricist) and their late sound manipulator Jeremy Michael Ward. It follows the story of Cerpin Taxt, who follows his own fearlessness to two self-inflicted ends: only the first time, it doesn't work. The first attempt at suicide results in Taxt falling into a coma, during which he explores visions of humanity (for example, he views the city of Pompeii following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and Italy, which buried the city in ash and provided a snapshot of city dwellers' lives at the time) and his own psyche. Disillusioned, he attempts suicide again and succeeds. The concept is nigh impossible to follow, mainly because it's conveyed via an insanely complex passage of metaphors and Bixler' copiously large vocabulary. Only on disappointingly short opener 'Son et Lumiere' and the delightfully titled 'Televators' can you detect what exactly is going on lyrically.
However, the main reason you'll be listening to the Mars Volta is probably because you want to know what Bixler Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez are doing now that ATD-I have run their course. Lopez's eccentric guitar work is more refined: his combination of mind-crushing psychedelic effects and spastic, frenetic thrash riffage are more distinctly arranged, largely due to his and Rick Rubin's stellar, dynamic production. Bixler Zavala, known for his sloppy, passionate hardcore vocals, has returned with a versatile, melodic falsetto. He conveys his lyrics with a wider pallet of emotions too: not just rage, but regret, melancholia and tragic determination. It is largely because of him that the character of Cerpin Taxt comes to life.
Of course, the synergy of the rest of the group cannot be discredited. Drummer Jon Theodore and guest bassist Flea have a chemistry that gives the infectious opening of 'Cicatriz ESP' and the polyrhythmic explosion that is 'Drunkship of Lanterns' all of their urgency and intent. Well, not all of it. Ikey Owens, keyboards, plays a pivotal role, working his supreme chops into songs like the ATDI-ish 'Inertiatic ESP' in ways you never thought possible. In the end, it's all down to the combination of Chili Pepper John Frusciante (who would go on to be a perennial guest star on Volta albums) and Rodriguez-Lopez. The pair wield their instruments incredibly expressively and with such propulsion that it takes the more guitar based songs like the monumental 'Cicatriz ESP', the profoundly emotional 'Eriatarka' and the closing 'Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt' to a whole other realm of tone and atmosphere. Without either of them, 'De-Loused' would just be another prog-album: their fluent axe playing lends it a singular ambience, in both a figurative and literal sense of the term, as passages of ambient effects play a relatively large role in defining some songs.
If you're looking for disaffected emo romanticism, look elsewhere: might I point you in the direction of a band like Sparta (featuring the other half of ATDI) and see you on your way. It's not really for those who wanted Bixler Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez to follow up on the burgeoning socio-political passages evocative of RATM locates on ATDI's final album, Relationship of Command, either. It's for those who want something different, something altogether more filling and satisfying. It's for those who want an album to listen to and, more importantly, understand. It's for those with enterprising tastes who want something fresh. It's for anyone with a bit of patience, really.
