The Mars Volta- Amputechture

egon spengler

Has anyone listened to it yet? Its not as good as their first two albums, but Im quite impressed with it though. It sounds like a nightmare on record, especially with the last track which gets increasingly more sinister and evil as it progresses with the sitars and such. Whereas I found the first album to be elegiac and the second album to be a tragic and epic western, this album sounds like the day of the triffids. Very alien and dark in places like on the the penultimate track with the sci fi ambient noises accompanied by an atonal guitar scale. Its well worth listening but I think that in places they become a bit of a parody of themselves. Its their most jazz rock album to date but it doesnt feel like a great step foward in terms of their sound. Still its well worth a listen. Its a formidable record.

uncle ernie

thought it was up its own arse tbh, hard album to get into and not a patch on de-loused in the comatorium. they seemed to be heading this way with frances the mute but this one is fairly self indulgent:rolleyes:

egon spengler

I prefered frances the mute compared to deloused, it was more accomplished, more going on in it. I know some people associate big guitar solos with self indulgence and to some extent theyd be right, on amputechture thats certainly what came across at times, but not on frances the mute. In fact I found deloused to be kind of self indulgent (the 3 min sound scape thing in the middle of track 7, the weird sound effects after each song which were fairly raspy, not very pleasant on the ear). Deloused was a great album but imo not as good as frances the mute. Im getting more and more into Amputechture, but so far it has not been as rewarding.

AbusesToilets

I just bought it myself and had it playing in the background whilst surfing.Really didn't grab me the way De-Loused or Frances did.IMO they could do with a bit more structural focus.
Oh,for the days of ATDI......:rolleyes:

The Free Man

i love it, but not as much as ditc or ftm. and now that jon theodore is gone :(:(

BleakestH

Heard it a few times now and it hasn't grabbed me at all. Seems they were concentrating so much on making it so all over the place they neglected to write any memorable songs. Frances the Mute at least had some fantastic hooks in it.

eddyc

I have to say that the mars volta are a pretty hit and miss band. On amputechture there are some pretty wanky tunes like meccamputechture ,vicarious atonement and el ciervo vulnerado, those tunes are pretty bad. But tunes like telegrammaton, asilos magdelena and viscera eyes are crazy good, and whoever said there aint no catchy bits wasnt paying attention when day of the baphomets was on.
Overall a great album , if nothing else simply becouse they are trying something new unlike 99.9% of indy bands out there, I wouldnt even call them an indy band for that matter 'prog rock' maybe.

bluto63

To me it felt like they were trying to put too much in. Didn't like it that much. I'll give it a few more listens and see if it starts to grow on me, but first impression is not good

egon spengler

what I like about it is the fact that there is a total lack of regard for rules, one song will just completely change and then after some mind bending craziness it will segue back into the original tune. Tracks 3 and 5 are probably the best, track 1 is cool in a desperado way, track 2 and track 4 are quite good, track 6 has a led zep vibe going on with the main riff, track 7 is redolent of track 10 off deloused, its quite good but not great and track 8 is just plain evil.

e.doobie

ah i quite liked it.. thats not to say my initial reaction on hearing it was anything like when i first heard fTmute.... ah was/is a brilliant brilliant album... and yea i loved amputechture..

i think its just their sound ... so distingtive..
''original'' so to speak

ronano

I love the mars volta and i hate to pull the card but come on their sound is far from original

RE*AC*TOR

Haven't listened to this yet. Will eventually get around to it. My hesitation comes from Frances the Mute. Its basically a load of crap. Self-indulgent doesn't even begin to cover the depth of pissing about on that record.

For me Relationship of Command was a perfect album. If anyone asks me to recommend them an album its usually no.2 on my list.

Deloused was an accomplished album, I liked the direction taken, the risks taken - they seemed to have merit. By the time they got to Frances though, it felt like they had lost their inspiration and were arbitrarily inserting random time structures and quick/slow/loud/quiet alternations.

Maybe its for someone, but it doesn't float my boat. I'm just happy I got to see ATDI live in Dublin before they broke up. For the moment at least - unfulfilled potential.

BleakestH

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Haven't listened to this yet. Will eventually get around to it. My hesitation comes from Frances the Mute. Its basically a load of crap. Self-indulgent doesn't even begin to cover the depth of pissing about on that record.

Dude...if you didn't like Frances the Mute for those reasons, you're going to hate Amputechture.

Secretpint

after a couple of listens it finally gre and me and I do like it, its deiently there worst album but its still good, just not a masterpiece as much as the first two are.

anyone else notice that the songs just end really suddenly, its just strange that songs that go on 5+ minutes just end,BOOM! song over!

e.doobie

ronano wrote:

I love the mars volta and i hate to pull the card but come on their sound is far from original

well when i first heard them, i thought they were differant to the kind of band that would generally interest me..but there was something about them that sounded , original i guess. they deffinatly have their own sound and each song has its own significance and place on the album and...
yadda yadda yadda..
something about them.. i mean they are very much doing their own thing.. and far as the music's concerned

Ho-Hum

Its an ok album but for me it doesn't come anywhere near to deloused.

robotfridge

Ho-Hum wrote:

Its an ok album but for me it doesn't come anywhere near to deloused.

I agree completely. Deloused is an amazing album, and for me their best. I just can't get into amputechture as after listening to it for 15 or 20 minutes i just get annoyed. It just drags on