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OT-The Mars Volta


kishjor

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meh. I haven't liked more than 30-second bits since Deloused.

 

 

Deloused was masterful!

 

Frances the Mute had it's moments of brilliance.

 

Amputechture was not so good...

 

They need a producer before it's too late methinks..

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Deloused was masterful!


Frances the Mute had it's moments of brilliance.


Amputechture was not so good...


They need a producer before it's too late methinks..

 

 

Bingo. That's my take on things as well. For Deloused Rick was there to be like "Omar, these bird chirp solos don't sound good, and you're not better than the other musicians at anything but guitar, so stick to it."

 

Now Omar is like "oh cool, I can put a 4 minute bird chirp section in this song because there is no one to tell me not to and music isn't about oppession, it's about creative freedom, improvisaion, strat from the soul, and other stupid {censored} like that."

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Amp has an over-compressed, cut and paste feel to it. IMHO. DITC, while still over-compressed, had a more live and urgent feel..

I still love them though. I just feel Omar is straying more and more away from music and going more towards noise..

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While I partially agree with your statement, Amp doesnt have ANY "chirping"/ambience really at all.

 

 

You kinda have a point there. What really help me back from amp was a bit different.

 

The songs are long, but not in an epic way. The songs exceed 10 minutes, but they all seem to just repeat the same typical 3 or 4 parts that would be in a 4 minute song anyway.

 

The songs just don't stand out as much as they used to for me. That could be due to the length.

 

I didn't like the production at all.

 

And other smaller reasons not worth mentioning.

 

I am still curious to hear the next album and hope that they can pull off something I like as well as Tremulant or Deloused. Even if I liked it as much as my version of Frances with the noise sections cut out I would be happy!

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At the drive in was SOOO much better than the Mars Volta and Sparta. They leveled each other out. Sparta keep Omar from doing 5 minute break downs of helicopter prop samples run through a chorus pedal, and Volta keep Sparta from being so predictable. I liked the first 3 or 4 songs that the Mars Volta leaked right after they left Atdi, and I was a little excited. Then the album came out and I couldn't stand it. From what I have read they improvise for a few weeks and record it. Then Omar locks the studio for a couple of months and chops up everything over dubs it then lets the rest of the band hear their music (after its finished). If thats true its the most absurd writing process I have ever heard. I like it when David Torn or Bill Laswell produces music this way, but a rock band... The thing that bothers me about them the most is that so many of my friends love them. They think their genious. I think they are just trying to make art for the sake of art. Thats the problem with alot of experimental music. It can be good but if you take the heart out of it everything just sounds so dull and lifeless. Whenever I hear Volta I just wonder. Don't they ever get tired of all this high brow pretentious b.s and just want to make something that comes from the heart?

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I think that Meccamputechture is one of the most epic songs ever, FWIW. That being said, I see where you are coming from. There are a couple songs that seem to go in cirlces, without leaving me with my hair standing up.

 

It took me quite a while to get into Amp, while the other 2 were love at first sight/listen. And I too, am greatly looking forward to The Bedlam in Goliath. I think that the title sounds badass. Hopefully it is reflective of what the material is.

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At the drive in was SOOO much better than the Mars Volta and Sparta. They leveled each other out. Sparta keep Omar from doing 5 minute break downs of helicopter prop samples run through a chorus pedal, and Volta keep Sparta from being so predictable. I liked the first 3 or 4 songs that the Mars Volta leaked right after they left Atdi, and I was a little excited. Then the album came out and I couldn't stand it. From what I have read they improvise for a few weeks and record it. Then Omar locks the studio for a couple of months and chops up everything over dubs it then lets the rest of the band hear their music (after its finished). If thats true its the most absurd writing process I have ever heard. I like it when David Torn or Bill Laswell produces music this way, but a rock band... The thing that bothers me about them the most is that so many of my friends love them. They think their genious. I think they are just trying to make art for the sake of art. Thats the problem with alot of experimental music. It can be good but if you take the heart out of it everything just sounds so dull and lifeless. Whenever I hear Volta I just wonder. Don't they ever get tired of all this high brow pretentious b.s and just want to make something that comes from the heart?



"Better". :rolleyes: Its a matter of opinion. I used to be all about ATDI, but TMV shooshed that a bit for me.

Omar writes parts. Brings people into the studio to have them play their part to a metronome. Takes that recording and plops it on top of the other tracks. And according to wiki (not the most reliable source in the world, but still..), this was just how Miles Davis worked. Far from absurd, IMO. Its called a single writer having a band play his music.

High brow pretentious BS? I think that the most pretentious of all are the people that point fingers like that. And {censored}....if I went from being a psychotic crackhead to being a relatively highly successful writer/composer/musician, Im sure that many would say that I was pretentious.

And BTW - when did the word "pretentious" become such an "in style" term? Quite frankly, Im {censored}ing sick of hearing it. Think of something else.

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Quote from wiki about the recording process: "He used a method that jazz musicians such as Miles Davis used to invoke great performances from bandmates: refusing to let the other members hear each other's parts, or the context of their own part, thereby forcing them to play each part as if it were a self-sufficient song."

 

Sounds like a wonderful idea for a band that has a leadman that writes almost all of the parts. :idk:

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I love deloused in the comatorium, and was really excited to hear their new stuff, and as soon as I heard francis the mute I lost interest... and never listen to them anymore.

 

By the way, deloused was not really THAT much more out there than the relationship of command album... you could see where ATDI was heading.....

 

I loved ATDI, like all of their stuff... but those two albums back to back are my favorite things to ever come out of either band.

 

Relationship of Command + Deloused in the Comatorium FTW

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They've got this "attempting to be as far outside of the box as possible." I think they're music would be 100 times better if they tried to cram as much technicality and musicality into a 3 and a half minute song than stretching it out over 26 minutes.

 

Same thing with Sigur Ros. Don't get me wrong, I love both of these groups. But after a while it all sounds like a bunch of ambient mush.

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I really liked ATDI, Mars Volta....eh, not so much (in my best Borat voice)

ATDI had the eclectic feel to it, the crazy sounds you haven't really heard anywhere else before, but still had great hooks, had a feel like a straight up rock song in a lot of ways. The later stuff didn't really have any hooks that caught me, it all seemed like this...uh whatever I just didn't like it.

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They've got this "attempting to be as far outside of the box as possible." I think they're music would be 100 times better if they tried to cram as much technicality and musicality into a 3 and a half minute song than stretching it out over 26 minutes.


Same thing with Sigur Ros. Don't get me wrong, I love both of these groups. But after a while it all sounds like a bunch of ambient mush.



3:30 isnt enough time to build. SRSLY. I personally like the fact that the climax gets teased over and over.

And I love both TMV and SR too. :thu:

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they dont just repeat the same things over and over again.

 

 

I must be listening to the wrong Mars Volta then. Especially on Amp. I'll listen to a song that is the same 2 parts over for 10 minutes, then it will switch to an outro part that repeats for another 7 minutes. There will also be randomly place guitar wanking over the couple parts, which doesn't help much.

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