The Mars Volta
| The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta
The Mars Volta is the seventh studio album by American progressive rock band the Mars Volta, released through Clouds Hill on September 16, 2022. Produced by guitarist, songwriter and musical director Omar Rodríguez-López, the album was preceded by the singles "Blacklight Shine", "Graveyard Love" and "Vigil". -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
On the duo’s first album in 10 years, Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala mellow out, abandoning their unhinged prog opuses for a kind of airy, Caribbean yacht rock.
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NME
Reformed prog-punks’ astounding masterpiece.
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Distorted Sound Magazine
All of the musical fluidity is there from their previous releases, just a lack of their more ferocious, uncaged side of the beast. The Mars Volta is a well-composed and produced effort that shows a continued high standard of writing the band have established across their other previous releases. While they have maybe taken a risk in deciding to shine a light solely on what they can create in their softer sphere, it’s a light that is justly deserved for that more delicate side and one that provides intrigue for where the future of this enigmatic act quite may lie sonically.
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The Quietus
The Mars Volta may well be one to grow on you. This is a record that can make you think a thousand things at once. But if you’re willing to sit and savour the taste before digesting, you’ll understand why it took so long to ferment.
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Spectrum Culture
When you begin your career making psych-prog epics, perhaps the most subversive thing you can do is write a song where your vocal delivery sounds a little bit like Hall & Oates for a second.
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musicOMH
Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala reunite for their most revolutionary album yet, comprising dense progressive workouts, straight ahead pop, Latin-American rhythms and dance figures.
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Treblezine
To someone who’s been with this group for a while, none of the moves here will be new, just their prominence. But seeing avowed non-fans of this group have their intrigue sparked, finally, after literally decades of the band’s existence, by the material presented here—It verifies something. This is something worth being excited about. Sometimes, that’s better than turning in a quality record of otherwise similar material.
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Clash Magazine
Closing with the taut – a touch over two minutes – of ‘Collapsible Shoulders’, the record then concludes with ‘The Requisition’. Little on here stretches beyond the four minute mark, with The Mars Volta opting for brevity and precision, over the excess of old. Yet perhaps that’s where the challenge lies, both to themselves and their audience – in hitting reset, The Mars Volta have hit upon an incredibly surprising new phase in their multi-faceted evolution.
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Spill Magazine
The Mars Volta shines as an album that sees Rodríguez-López and Bixler-Zavala take quite the creative risk as they return with a sleek and modern sound. Never ones to shy away from a musical challenge, their self-titled release sees the band practice restraint in their musicianship and subtly in their delivery, all within in a new musical context, while also breaking through the barriers of the stylistic parameters in sublime and sophisticated fashion. The result is an exciting creative experiment that only adds enigmatic vitality of The Mars Volta.
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Ghost Cult Magazine
Few musicians have changed more since that time, from At The Drive-In to The Mars Volta, to Antemasque and back to At The Drive-In, to The Mars Volta again, from punk to prog to “pop”, from hardcore to what we have here now. Any fans out there who somehow feel “let down” or even “betrayed” will just have to come to terms with the fact the core duo have moved on and developed, while demonstrating a rare and commendable longevity through the ups and downs. Keep the faith.
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Beats Per Minute
Maybe within all this soothing softness, the pleasant yacht rock guitars and 60s mellotrons there’s something else after all, buried so deep within the mix we barely sense it. Or, in total contrast, it’s this lack that drives some mad; the fact there is nothing to this self-titled album but what we plainly see: the very words and emotions of two soulmate-friends who love to be back together, with one of them there to get at the tormentors that tore into the love of his life.
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Consequence
The Mars Volta’s Self-Titled Album is a Simpler Yet Wholly Satisfying Return.
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Boolin Tunes
All told, The Mars Volta accomplish a tight, impressive pop record with their latest release. Even within that self-prescribed confine, the band still manages to throw a variety of different looks. There’s not a bad track to be found here, and the final results comes off as notably more polished than the output from other projects over the last decade. To accomplish such a shift this successfully bears worth mentioning, especially after so much time with their focus elsewhere. This band is a very different incarnation of The Mars Volta — more mature, but less outgoing.
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mxdwn Music
It is safe to say that this album was worth the wait. The Mars Volta is one of the strongest records in their discography, and it makes sense that this is the album that has the honor of being the band’s self-titled record. It is thoroughly enjoyable to listen to, with exciting melodies and well-crafted tracks. The band does a great job of creating a cohesive record, and does a superb job of making creative and interesting sounds that are not overused in rock music.
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Belwood Music
This eponymous effort does have it’s plus points; Cedric’s vocals are in fine form, and it’s great to here the obtuse cryptic lyrics set aside in favour of more immediate and personal songwriting. But between the underdeveloped ideas, languid pacing, inexpressive arrangements and flat production, as a whole the album loses more than it gains. The band certainly had potential to make an accessible record of a higher calibre. There’s nothing wrong with pop, there are plenty of interesting pop albums out there – this just isn’t one of them.
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All Things Loud
It was a challenge to get to the end of this album, and even more of a challenge to remember anything about it when I did. It’s impossible to hate the pleasantries on offer here, but that’s because it’s a struggle to feel anything at all. Who knows how they’ll integrate these songs into their back catalogue live, but the bigger question is, will anyone care?
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Live4ever
A record for which you may ultimately have love or hate, just its existence proves that they’re still only interested in playing the game their way.
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Narc Magazine
If you like The Mars Volta, you can’t have missed that they have a new album out. You’ve probably heard singles and thought ‘well, that sounds pretty pop.’ Yeah. The rest of the album is too. It’s ‘accessible’, if that’s what you want from your progressive rock. Songs have verses and choruses that sound like they are the same song. Songs run for three minutes. There’s very little that’s weird aside from the occasional conservative bit of reverse guitar, occasional Spanish lyrics and Latin cross rhythms, but melded with a more funk, 70s RnB soundworld, which it makes the album sound in places more like Silk Sonic than Frances The Mute. Which, after a couple of listens, and in the right mindset…is good.
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Punktastic
And after all the overthinking, and trying to understand, it becomes obvious. This is almost the anti-Mars Volta, and that’s the point of the record. It’s tame but not toothless, soporific but not tired, it’s restrained and delicate but it’s also The Mars Volta being The Mars Volta. Distilling their music has made it effortlessly compelling. Leave your expectations at the door, this is a brilliant comeback.
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Flood Magazine
It’s another shedding of skin, revealing more of the fragile, mortal humans behind it all than ever before. The Mars Volta, then, are dead. Long live The Mars Volta.
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Louder
Where once they would gallop, here they lope, they slide, giving themselves all the time in the world. Hardcore fans of the weird stuff are going to hate it. It’s hard to imagine this duo of aural adventurers giving a fig about that. This is clearly the right music for this stage in their musical evolution. It’s good to see that they’re still keeping us guessing.
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