As anyone who’s read the evangelical Mars Volta missives this writer has penned over the last couple of years will know (hello mother), I’m something of a fan. Granted, the El Paso combo’s vaulting and often impossibly convoluted noise is not every man’s meat, but for those partial to Fiesta de los Muertos hallucinations rendered sonic, their intensity and bloody-mindedness is a godsend.
The MV’s atomic energies derive from what happens when you introduce apparently irreconcilable opposites and fuse them into a bi-polar whole: the unstoppable force of progressive hardcore – specifically Black Flag and Bad Brains – meets the immoveable object of late 60s stoner rock – King Crimson and Pink Floyd – plus numerous and lengthy digressions into flamenco, space rock, acid samba and Miles’ cool fusion circa 1969. I saw them live at Witnness two years ago and they took my head off, Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez seemingly acting as a medium for his guitar rather than playing it, Cedric Bixler-Zavala wailing like a ring-wraith and lariat-swinging the microphone. Not to mention a drummer who’d simultaneously inherited Sonny Liston’s animal brawn and boned up on Ali’s dance moves.
So a live album is entirely forgivable. No, scratch that, justified. No, scratch that again: necessary. Like De-loused… and Frances The Mute, this is one serving you won’t digest in a hurry. The music on Scabdates (you want titles? How about ‘Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt’ or ‘Caviglia’ or ‘Haruspex’ – believe me, it’s academic: you won’t be singing along to the choruses, ’cos there are none) is every bit as lumbering and ungainly as on those two records. Sometimes it sounds like a monster (‘Concertina’), sometimes a bootleg recorded via sputnik (‘Abrasions Mount The Timpani’). A lot of the time it sounds like the MC5’s Sun Ra collaboration ‘Starship’ filtered through Neil’s Arc-Weld symphony for feedback and drum kit, with a few chunks of Beefheart guitar and Ornette sax just to stick in your craw.
With Scabdates, the Mars Volta have spawned another beautiful mutant.