Just when you thought At the Drive-In might be pairing their reunion gigs with a new record, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala have sprung this on us: the Mars Volta‘s sixth album. Due out March 27th through Warner Bros., Noctourniquet features the following, according to a press release:
While Noctourniquet was, in typical Mars Volta fashion, written by and produced by Rodriguez-Lopez, the 13-track album explores musical territories previously uncharted in the duo’s 20 or so years of creating music together. The spectrum of musical and emotional textures conceived and created by Rodriguez-Lopez on Noctourniquet ranges from the opening bombast of “The Whip Hand” to the menacing crawl of “The Malkin Jewel” punctuated throughout by hypnotic melodies and borderline electro-ambient washes, most notably in the epic “In Absentia.” The bold diversity of the new material combined with Rodriguez-Lopez’s assured producer’s hand guiding The Mars Volta’s most confident and refined performances to date make Noctourniquet an early contender for this year’s most challenging and rewarding listen.
As with previous Mars Volta efforts, Bixler-Zavala’s lyrics trace a narrative journey with a defined protagonist, this time inspired by disparate elements including ’80s UK alt-rockers The Godfathers, Superman comic nemesis Solomon Grundy and the Greek myth of Hyacinthus.
In other words, good luck making any sense of it all, especially the song titles. Check out the album’s complete tracklisting and likely cover after the jump…
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When At the Drive-In announced that they’d be reissuing two of their records this spring, the last thing we expected to hear alongside them was the following remix: a trance-inducing “One Armed Scissor” treatment, ushered into the void by The Field. Considering how spastic the original is, this remix is basically a revelation, the polar opposite of all the rap-rock bullshit At the Drive-In should have been rallying against in the early ’00s instead of themselves.
