This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Is it just me, or do singer Cedric Bixler and guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez have some of the worst luck in rock ’n’ roll?
First their old band At the Drive-In imploded just as they were breaking through to the mainstream. Then, less than a month before the official release of this first full-length offering from their new band The Mars Volta, their keyboard player Ikey Owens died from an apparent drug overdose.
OK, so maybe time — or at least timing — isn’t on their side. Then again, with an album as exciting and ambitious as this, they may not need it. De-Loused In The Comatorium — supposedly a concept album-song cycle about the life (and perhaps death) of a childhood friend — is a stunning, frenzied hybrid of sounds, styles and sonic sensibilities. The blister and peel of ’90s emo, the intricacy and discipline of prog, the swagger and stomp of classic rock, the scrape and screech of noise-rock, the squelch and squiggle of electronica and even the echo and murk of dub all factor into these 10 tracks, which range in length from 89 seconds to 12-plus minutes and come bearing impregnagle titles like Cicatriz ESP and Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt.
If you can imagine Radiohead and The Music trying to impersonate Led Zeppelin while playing old Yes songs on Sonic Youth’s equipment, you might come close to the sound generated by the combination of Bixler’s shamanic yelp, Rodriguez-Lopez’s burbling axework, and the relentlessly complex intensity of this hour-long fever-dream. With a little luck, they’ll be around long enough for a sequel.
