The Mars Volta

The Mars Volta is the self-titled and seventh full-length release by The Mars Volta.  Initial planning for reactivating The Mars Volta occurred at the conclusion of At the Drive-In’s touring in 2018.  The At the Drive-In tour had a significant impact on Omar’s approach to this new album, stating “Being on tour with At the Drive-In for three years, playing way faster than we even do in Mars Volta and more aggressively, you know, it’s all the same frequencies, right? Two guitars, the cymbals and Cedric’s voice are all in the same frequency, fighting all night long, every day. With the exhaustion of the tour, I just started making tracks, and as I was saturated with this other thing, I wanted to do something else. For me, the most exciting new direction is something we haven’t done: to cut things down, to do our version of pop.” The abbreviated nature of the songs was a focal point in early promotions.  

Although Octahedron was initially promoted as the band’s first pop album, during promotional interviews for this album, Omar and Cedric referred to this album as their first pop record, with Cedric stating “At the time I couldn’t have that conversation, because I was so stuck in whatever sort of genre where we were pigeonholed as. I was so comfortable, and I was so used to making very long songs and having them be labyrinth-like and all that kind of stuff. And I just couldn’t get my head around it.”  Omar additionally stated “We’ve been warning you guys, we were saying ten years ago that the most revolutionary thing we could do was make a pop record. We’re in our mid-to-late 40s and you can’t just still be doing the same shit, expecting to wear an old t-shirt that doesn’t fit any more.”

Omar had recorded about four dozen tracks to be potentially used for this album, offering Cedric the opportunity to listen to them and comment on which ones he wanted to record vocals to.  During press interviews it was revealed the band, concerned about music leaking, would mail CD-Rs to each other in order to swap ideas.  Vocal recordings occurred over a ten day period in a rented housing in Los Angeles.  The intention was to record immediate responses to songs.  Although still with Cedric’s signature style, the lyrics are significantly more straight forward compared to previous The Mars Volta songs.  Lyrical content was focused on Cedric’s wife’s campaign against her assailant Danny Masterson, Scientology, and former bandmate Jeremy Ward who passed away from a drug overdose nearly a decade ago.  Cedric elaborated “In these songs, there are more direct expressions of what you’re supposed to be feeling. On a lot of other Mars Volta records, you’ll have that every once in a while. But more often you’ll have this total sci-fi riddle. Now I’m speaking about just the things that are happening.”  He cited Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Phil Collins, and Paul Weller as influences.  He has compared this album to Peter Gabriel’s So.  

Additional recording occurred after these sessions, with Omar flying to New York City to record additional drum, bass, piano, and percussion work.  Original bassist Eva Gardner returned to the band for this recording as well as the subsequent live tour.  The drummer against changed with Willy Rodriguez Quiñones being tapped to drum for this album.  Marcel continued his role providing synthesizer and other electronic sounds.  He also mixed the album.  Former The Mars Volta sound technician Matt Bittman has praised Marcel’s work.  

Press release blurb:

Breaking a decade of omertà, The Mars Volta reawaken from their lengthy hiatus with an eponymous album that radically reshapes their paradigm. The new album shakes loose some of The Mars Volta’s long-standing shibboleths, fearlessly defying all expectations and categorizations. Instead, The Mars Volta pulses with subtle brilliance, Caribbean rhythms underpinning sophisticated, turbulent songcraft. This is The Mars Volta at their most mature, most concise, most focused. Their sound and fury channeled to greatest effect, The Mars Volta finds Rodríguez-López’s subterranean pop melodies driving Bixler-Zavala’s dark sci-fi tales of the occult and malevolent governments. Distilling all the passion, poetry and power at their fingertips, The Mars Volta is the most exciting and accessible music the group has ever recorded.

Charting:

Australian Albums (ARIA) – 86
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) – 66
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) – 142
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) – 152
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) – 18
Portuguese Albums (AFP) – 49
Scottish Albums (OCC) – 39
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) – 42
UK Digital Albums (OCC) – 18
UK Independent Albums (OCC) – 11
US Billboard 200 – 83
US Independent Albums (Billboard) – 10
US Top Alternative Albums (Billboard) – 6