After last year's audio assault 'The Bedlam in Goliath,' fans and detractors were more polarized about this band than ever. Whether you loved it or hated it, one thing you couldn't call it was boring. The same cannot be said, however, for The Mars Volta's latest effort to bridge the gap, 'Octahedron.'
'Octahedron' is 2003's Deloused in the Comatorium on ice -- breezy, pretty, at times epic but far from adventurous. An electric guitar decorates acoustic arpeggios as they crescendo into piano crashes and thunderous drums in opener 'Since We've Been Wrong,' which proves the band can capably handle balladry. It gives a faint glimmer of hope being that this is the band's self-professed "acoustic" album, but the rest of the mellow entries fail to pay off.
The ambiance gives way to the chugging electronic groove of 'Teflon,' whose vaguely menacing chorus leads complements Cedric Bixler-Zavala's emotive histrionics but fails to progress. In an attempt to ditch the post-singing insectoid snarl of Bedlam, Bixler here sounds a hair's-breadth from Geddy Lee -- take it or leave it. That said, the glistening production is a relieving improvement from the last album, even trumping 2005's 'Frances the Mute.'
Where composer/guitarist/producer/chief ego Omar Rodriguez-Lopez has outdone himself in production he has undersold himself in songwriting. 'Halo of Nembutals' chugs unremarkably from sing-songy chorus to bridge, fading tonally into the campfire eeriness of 'With Twilight as My Guide' which strangely has no chorus OR bridge.
'Cotopaxi' serves as an unintentional climax -- an energetic standout that would be audacious for anyone but this band. Instead, it sounds like a concise but vanilla homage to everything they've done before. 'Desperate Graves' stands out with its high-drama staccato chorus and strangely Tori Amos-like breakdown.
While "I'm the matchstick that you'll never lose," sounds vaguely cohesive, when Bixler sings about ringworms hanging themselves, magnifying holes and bodies stacked in tires, it only vaguely passes for imagery over sheer weirdness. Although 14-year-old fanboys will probably go apeshit trying to interpret and add meaning to the tacked-on story about a pair of missing friends, the truth is that there is just as much cohesion in the lyricism as there ever has been; that is to say, none. Only it's painfully more apparent now that the impressionism schtick is getting old than it was when Cedric first wowed us with the sci-fi word scramble of De-loused.
The unremarkable 'Copernicus' mixes emo longing with a brief smattering of, of all things, drum machines; a remarkable decision given that drumming prodigy Thomas Pridgen is more subtle, dynamic and on his game than ever. 'Luciforms' kind of averages the album's overall intensity and combines some 60s Floyd psychedelia with fiery prog-rock guitars and spastic pianos, but still recalls a less interesting version of Bedlam's closer 'Conjugal Burns.'
The Bedlam comparisons aren't unwarranted -- 'Octahedron' serves as a direct counterpoint to that album, and as a slap in the face to naysayers who (rightfully) bitched about that album's total lack of subtlety. It's structurally concise and atmospherically consistent. It may even be a critical or commercial success. It definitely doesn't push any boundaries, though, and that's what I love most about this band. Maybe this review is just a fan's disappointment, but Octahedron comes across as a pretty, and pretty unimpressive, record from a band that is capable of so much more.
2.5 / 5
*Reposted from another blog.
