Mars Volta - De-loused In The Comatorium
Mars Volta - De-Loused In The Comatorium
(Universal)
After being repeatedly let down by a number of albums I had been anticipating this year, it’s a relief to finally hear an album that restores my enthusiasm and passion for music. I was starting to think I had become too jaded or too picky to get into any new records lately, but when an album is really great it just doesn’t matter how jaded you are — you stop and take notice.
Expectations were definitely high for this record; rebuilding from the break-up of the overly hyped yet ridiculously talented At The Drive-In can be no easy task, and yet The Mars Volta wasted no time releasing a stellar 3-song teaser EP last year promising that even more brilliance was still to come.
De-loused in the Comatorium proves without a doubt which members of ATDI possessed the highest levels of raw talent and creative genius… although it also proves which members probably have the highest levels of chemical supplements in their bloodstream too. Created as a concept album about a friend who tried to commit suicide and experienced weird visions, the record is all at once haunting, visceral and unpredictable. It threatens at any moment to tumble into chaos and incoherence, but in walking the line between sanity and lunacy it manages to explore a realm that has never been heard before. From one moment to the next, you can never be sure what is about to happen, but each song flows with an otherworldly underlying structure.
The musicians in this band play with amazing precision and instinct. The ecclectic guitar playing of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez moves from frantic math rock riffs to subtle harmonic accents. The drumming of Jon Theodore is tight and crisp, while the keyboard accompaniment and sound experimentation of both Isaiah Ikey Owens and the late Jeremy Ward enhance each song with an eerie atmosphere. Guest bassist Flea of course needs no introduction, and his personal style melds perfectly with the dub elements and rhythmic intensity of the Mars Volta. John Frusciante also plays guitar on a track as well.
The key to this album however, has got to be the vocal presence of Mr. Cedric Bixler. He steers clear of any screaming, and yet the astounding range and power of his voice is showcased here to extremes that make any At The Drive-In recording pale in comparison.
Although there are a number of longer songs with freestyle jam outs (Cicatriz ESP clocks in at over 12 minutes), I was quite pleasantly surprised at how energetic the album is on the whole. There are plenty of relaxed parts in each song, but there are no overly lengthy lulls that would potentially cause a listener to nod off. Personally I was on the edge of my seat for the entire duration, waiting to hear what would happen next.
In hindsight, the album is a logical progression from At The Drive-In but it is much more impressive than anything I could have ever imagined. If you are an At The Drive-In fan I can’t see how you wouldn’t enjoy this album. As much as I enjoy Sparta, this is the true follow up I was waiting for. I’m pretty sure you’ll hear plenty of people calling De-loused In The Comatorium “album of the year” in the coming months. As much as I hate to contribute to the hype machine myself, I’ve got to admit that this is probably my favourite album to come out so far this year. — Sean

I can’t pinpoint exactly when it became hip for punk rock and indie rock bands to pick up an acoustic guitar, but I am pretty sure it was Dashboard Confessional who persuaded most people that unplugged music could still be full of energy and emotion. There have been a lot of bands that have since attempted to emulate the Dashboard stripped down sound, to the point where it is already being done far too frequently to be interesting or different anymore. The worst part is that many of the bands don’t even really understand what it was that made the first Dashboard Confessional record an instant classic. Even Chris Carabba himself seems to have lost touch with that original batch of songs and the intimate feel with which they were performed.
Arnold Schwarzenegger (whose last name means “black plowman” in English) has been in a slump for quite some time now. His last three movies, End of Days, The Sixth Man, and Collateral Damage, were all box office flops. Arnold seems to have turned his attention from making killer action movies to politics and making sure retarded kids exercise. Maybe Arnie is getting soft in his old age, or maybe the popularity of the circulating Arnold prank phone calls has tainted his image so much that people can no longer take him seriously, even more than before. Whatever the answer is, a true sign of his need for a hit is the fact that he agreed to another Terminator sequel WITHOUT the involvement of James Cameron in any way. Well I guess you could say “There is no fate but what we make for ourselves”.
Of course Arnold shows up like he has in both previous movies, completely naked and buff as shit. A similar scene as in T2 occurs when Arnold enters a bar to get some clothes. But this time, the bar turns out to be a men’s strip club full of biker women. Hilarity ensues as Arnold is mistaken for a stripper, and to top it all off, Macho Man is playing as this all goes down.
To quote one of Sean Connery’s many corny one-liners in this movie, “I’m waiting to be impressed”. Like all of the many comic book adaptations that have emerged in the past couple of years, I went into this movie trying not to get my hopes up and basically expecting the worst. And for once I was NOT pleasantly surprised — I actually did get the worst. I guess I should have known there would be problems when they took a clever and original graphic novel written by Alan Moore and shortened the title to three simple letters to make it more marketable.
I guess the most insulting part of this movie is the writing. To take something so brilliantly written and just throw it all away in favour of an idiotic, formulaic and confusing action movie is a damn shame. No doubt this is because they handed the project to a rookie screenwriter who has absolutely no credentials. (Ever heard of the 1995 film Cyber Bandits? Me neither.) He uses so many action/adventure cliches that it quickly grows annoying. The plot is convoluted and hard to follow. The pacing is all wrong too, with some parts overloading on action while the middle of the movie is extremely slow and tiresome as character development is forced upon us.
Watching a foreign movie is always an exciting adventure, offering a refreshing alternative to the cliches of North American (in particular Hollywood) film that really do grow tiresome after a while. This is exactly why everyone needs to brave a movie from outside the North American bubble every now and then, even if you are subtitle-phobic.
“Golden Leg” Fung was a soccer star who missed a game-winning penalty kick in 1981, after which he was beaten up by an angry crowd and had his leg broken, ending his career. Fast-forward 20 years, and he is now ashamed to be the lowly janitor for Lung, the manager of a professional soccer team who gloats that he was the one who arranged Fung’s career-ending injury. Down on his luck, Fung meets up by chance with a Shaolin monk who is determined to find a way to introduce the beauty and practicality of Shaolin Kung Fu to the masses. Of course, he is sure that song and dance is the way to go, but Fung has a revelation and convinces him to form a soccer team instead. What follows is their quest for the championship trophy as these Shaolin monks use their mystical kung fu powers to kick ass on the soccer field and avenge Fung’s honour.
British Director Danny Boyle is slowly building up a filmography of original and evocative films; with movies like Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and The Beach behind him, you can now add 28 Days Later to this impressive list. What’s interesting is that while many directors establish a style and stick to it, Boyle’s movies are all across the board. 28 Days Later has been called a “zombie movie” and though it’s much more than a simple horror movie it’s certainly not what you might expect from the same guy who directed Trainspotting. It’s also not something you’d expect to hit theatres in the middle of the summer, in head-to-head competition with all of the big blockbusters… but it’s certainly a nice alternative to them. The movie has been out for a year in the U.K. already so it’s about damn time we got to see it this side of the Atlantic.
Boyle shot the movie on digital video to give it that gritty, documentary feel, but don’t go getting any ideas of the Blair Witch Project here. Although you’ve no doubt heard catch phrases saying the movie is “scary as hell” and that Boyle “re-invents horror”, I’d say 28 Days Later is more of a thriller than a horror movie. Yes there are zombies, yes there is blood and gore, but the movie focuses more on nail-biting tense moments than spine-tingling chills.
It’s pretty weird how something can look cool and fashionable in one time period, only to look hideously wrong 10 years later. Perhaps nowhere is this fact illustrated better than with the classic “short in the front, long in the back” hairstyle that was popularized back in the 80’s — the mullet. The interesting thing is that over 20 years later the mullet still endures, in spite of all the backlash it has received.
I’ve since learned that there’s more to the mullet than meets the eye. The filmmakers actually do a fair amount of research for this movie. They have their share of interviews with funny people (including an 80’s rocker who refuses to sell out, some motorcycle salesmen, a transgendered stripper, some uncompromising hairstylists, and a very unintimidating Native American for example), but they also dig deeper at the mullet from a cultural perspective, if you can believe it. They talk to some university researchers who have analyzed the hairstyle and why it is prominent in the lesbian world, and they talk to a guy who runs a mullet-related website that gets a crazy amount of traffic every day. They even talk to the Mexican community, a Billy Ray Cyrus impersonator, and some professional soccer players. The only thing missing is a segment on “Hockey Hair”, because we all know that hockey players are some of the most famous mullet wearers on earth. Perhaps they are saving that for the sequel, “Canadian Mullet”.






























