Listen To This!

While I take some time to absorb the fresh offerings from Cedric and Omar, here’s what Amazon also has to say on the matter…

“Octahedron is the stunning new album from The Mars Volta. An album heady with the emotion and high-drama that has always been the band’s trademark, their newfound simplicity and focus has delivered some of the most immediate and powerful songs in their discography. The album opens with the tender ache of “Since We’ve Been Wrong”, Cedric’s keening vocal establishing a mood that’s deeply blue, powerfully melancholic, a suckerpunch that hits every bit as hard as Octahedron’s unashamed rockers (the gleaming futuristic funk of “Teflon”, the tense chase-music of “Cotopaxi”). Pulling back from the full-tilt experimentation of previous releases, the album invests its energies in Omar’s gift for songcraft, for swooning guitar runs of high tension and emotive power (”Luciforms”‘ epic riffage), and for the nagging hooks and melodies that wreath the churning rhythms of “Desperate Graves”.”

With band members from Fountains of Wayne, Cheap Trick and Hanson, it would be foolish to expect Tinted Windows to turn out to be some kind of experimental mathcore band. And although that would certainly have been interesting, what we have here, thankfully, is pure power-pop of the highest order: catchy, disposable, and totally engaging.

The hooks are solid, the vocals have bite, and the production sparkles. Kind Of A Girl and Messing With My Head stand strong as a pair of fine album openers. The summer is upon us. Let this be the soundtrack.