Man's Volta

Here's the news:



The Mars Volta announces their 6th studio album Noctourniquet due out in March. That's right, sixth album. Where has the time gone.

If you don't know The Mars Volta, let me give you my summary and essentially everything you need to know about them.



Once upon the 90s, the prog/punk band At-The-Drive-In split to form Sparta and The Mars Volta. These two bands (with impressive but very different skill sets) were ATDI's split personalities. Where Sparta went the more convetional rock music route, whereas TMV went uber progressive.

I hadn't heard of TMV, and when I saw them open for A Perfect Circle in 2002 I thought it was ATDI because of their trademark large hair and spastic performing. They were awesome to behold. My compadre, Crispex, made haste the next morning to buy De-loused in the Comatorium their first and greatest LP. It was awesome to behold. For whatever reason, these musicians struck a chord with me. I saw them in concert two more times touring their second and third albums. Each subsequent show was a little less impressive than the previous. I feel like once they got a strong fan base they just released every studio jam session no matter how subpar the track. Jon Theodore was their drummer and I thought he really pulled the band together. (Much like a quality rug can pull a room together.) He got tired of working with ego tripping lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala and left the band much to my disamay. Initially I thought that Theodore was irreplaceable, but their next drummer (though not as good a fit for TMV in my opinion) was actually more impressive. Thomas Pridgen (aka 'tha predator') played on The Bedlam in Goliath their 4th album. He is an animal, and awesome to behold. He makes this album my second favorite behind only thier first. Here they are performing 'Wax Simulacra' from said album.





Later Pridgen had a similar experience with the effeminant Bixler and also quit the band after releasing their 5th, Octahedron, which was so unremarkable I almost gave up on them completely. But in the end, I'm a sucker for some new Volta music so I'll be preordering my copy soon. Yes, it may very well be a "listen once then forget about it" type of CD, but I'll have to go ahead and make sure. If thats the case, then this post you're reading will then be an even bigger waste of time. But since you've read this far I'll be honest, I just came across this band image and wanted to post it somewhere, then I thought maybe I should put some words under it.

So these are those words.

Shallow and worthless I know.

Life is short I know.

What are we doing talking about TMV?

For that I have no answers.


Anybody heard news about Tool's new album? I've searched the interwebs and can't find anything but rumors. Proof links anyone? Hello? Anybody still reading this?