Space cadets glow

A Pink Floyd line goes, "We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year." For progressive punk band The Mars Volta, human beings are lost hooded figures driving cars on the highway, day after unnerving day. This band, which was formed from the ashes of seminal hardcore outfit At The Drive-In, knows the importance of a handy enigma. The Mars Volta’s "Frances the Mute" – the follow-up to the inscrutably brilliant "De-Loused in the Comatorium" – is a mélange of punk, prog, psychedelia, ambient, jazz, salsa, funk metal, astral freak-outs and lyrics that were seemingly "written in fingernail distaste." Just crank the shit up from start to finish. Listen to the goddamn album. No need to, in the words of my friend Lourd De Veyra, "listen to the press release" (like what our favorite "music columnist" does, week after silly week).

The bottom line: This album is a kick to the groin of Pop Music with its posse of mall punk rockers (Avril Lavigne and Pierre of Simple Plan are the Ken and Barbie of anarchy); overproduced superstars (Gwen Stefani’s songs are full of beats and antics signifying nonsense, Mariah is back with her bat-frequency squeals); and manufactured superstars (a "rocker" becoming an American Idol is one of the indications that the end of the world is nigh). But all is not lost. Yet.

The Mars Volta (and At The Drive-In before it) purveys music that is so astounding and so anachronistic. Anachronistic, since what passes for hot these days are simplistic pop slush produced by The Neptunes (who are producing everyone – as in everyone with bucketfuls of money). Astounding, since the music created by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (geeks with towering Afros) is so far-out, so confrontational, and cannot be conveniently filed under "alternative rock." It demands more than an open ear canal.

"De-Loused in the Comatorium" was so out-of-sync with what was happening in the music industry in 2003. The album starts off with science fiction guitars and then morphs into hardcore sludge, as Cedric Bixler-Zavala screams: "Now I’m lost!" After that, so much happens in the span of two tracks (Son Et Lumiere and Inertiatic ESP). There are chord changes, tempo lurches, melodic mutations, leaps in genre, etc. The Mars Volta purveys more ideas in a single track than what other bands offer in their entire careers.

Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of) is more in the vein of classic At The Drive-In, albeit more eerie and more melodic. It bludgeons listeners with fire, brimstone and apocalyptic textures and then lulls them with a revolving humming. The same with the other tracks which boast reverberating guitars, bongos and synthesizers.

And no, The Mars Volta is not as one-dimensional or as fashion-obsessed as the guys in bands which start with "The" – The Strokes, The Killers, The Used, the hell!

If "De-Loused" was inspired by the band’s painter-friend Julio Venegas, "Frances the Mute" is about "a stranger’s diary found on the backseat of a repossessed car" by deceased band mate Jeremy Ward.

The album is composed of five songs (if you could call them that) that are split into movements (so classical, so Yes, so King Crimson).

Cygnus…Vismund Cygnus begins with plaintive wailing, which turns into one piledriver of a ditty characterized by cascading bass, space cadet guitars, eerie electronic bits, and something about "umbilical syllables left to decode." This cosmic shit will make listeners want to start a revolution or a convulsion of the spirit. Something that bands such as The Stooges and MC5 and King Crimson were capable of during their heydays.

I heard The Widow in a Target store and was flabbergasted. It reeked of insomnia, lonely searches and black lungs. Here, Cedric lovingly sings, "I hear him every night in every pore and every time he just makes me… freeze without an answer." Brilliant. Radio-friendly yet mind-altering. But I’m sure most listeners could live without the electronic padding.

L’Via L’Viaquez is another fine track. It features the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ John Frusciante, who contributes two searing guitar solos. (Flea, who also played on The Mars Volta’s debut platter with Frusciante, plays languid trumpet in L’Via and Miranda That Ghost Isn’t Holy Anymore.)

I love the salsa breaks of L’Via. Its Latino-meets-prog-rock vibe makes me imagine a less commercial Carlos Santana playing with the Dead Kennedys (and not a pop slut like Rob Thomas or that twerp in The Calling or those hip-hoppers in POD). I also adore the out-of-tune guitar solo that clocks in at around 10:25 (yeah, this ain’t a three-minute pop song). Just before Cedric’s muffled and dismembered plea of "Oh Mother help me I’m looking for." Just before those chirping bird samples. Just before your mind goes wandering off into a corrosively lonely galaxy.

Miranda starts out like a Western ditty. You could just imagine the outlaw Josey Wales riding into the prairie, smelling of death, singing a shotgun blues.

Flea plays gringo trumpet in Miranda. Effectively. Evocatively. (A side note: The Peppers bassist rarely plays horns. He did so in Apache Rose Peacock. He also sessioned on Idiots Rule by Jane’s Addiction, along with Angelo Moore from Fishbone.)

Cassandra Gemini features free jazz saxophone excursions (like bastard notes off "Bitches Brew" and "Dark Magus"), more sci-fi rock (rock n’ roll with a library card), plus a spoken word passage (0:55) that evokes William S. Burroughs’ junky meditations:

There was a trail of syrup dripping off his lap danced lapel punctuated by her decrepit prowl she washed down the hatching gizzard soft as a mane of needles his orifice icicles hemmoraged by combing her torso to a pile perspired the trophy shelves made room for his collapse…

In fact, you could dupe your pretentious classmate into believing these words are from Naked Lunch or The Ticket That Exploded. He or she won’t know the difference.

The thing about The Mars Volta (the same with artists such as Burroughs, J.G. Ballard, Miles Davis, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Anthony Braxton, Naked City, Radiohead, or even At The Drive-In, etc.) is that it doesn’t compromise, conform, or press its lips to mainstream ass. As such, the band’s music tends to be uneasy listening. The songs in "Frances the Mute" are as inscrutable as Storm Thorgersen’s album cover depicting two figures wearing red hoods inside parallel cars. (By the way, Thorgersen also created arcane artwork for Pink Floyd.)

You can’t play a Mars Volta CD and pursue something trivial. It’s not background music. It’s not aural wallpaper. The songs in "Frances the Mute" force listeners to confront their inner aliens. Music is not furniture, after all. The same with art.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala are two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, album after album. We Martians are fortunate enough tolisten to their frantic flailing.

* * *

For comments, suggestions, curses and invocations, e-mail iganja_ys@yahoo.com.