The Mars Volta Album: “Scab Dates”

It should be said first and foremost that The Mars Volta amaze me, album after album, song after song, and to have to give anything of theirs less than 5 stars is truly heartbreaking, but in this case, necessary. While Scabdates has been marketed as a live album, it drifts away from that in the traditional sense, opting more towards a live recording mixed in with various sound effects, samples, and recordings of noise such as babies crying, people talking, and just overall ambience. This detracts from the expectations I had prior to hearing this, and while TMV are very much an improv-band and never ones to go the predictable route, the fact that more than half of Scabdates is Omar Rodriguez-Lopez looping his guitar through various effect pedals and mixing live jams with static and unnecessary noise makes most of this release a rather undesirable listen. I would have much rather heard the band improvising through the 80 minute set that this CD could have allowed, stopping in between the spacey wanderings to play some of the amazing songs which got them to the point they are at today.

Another terrible tragedy of this CD is, as has already been noted by other reviewers, the terrible mixing failing to encompass the performances of Juan Alderte and Jon Theodore, on bass and drums, respectively. While Juan's bass is audible, it is far too muddy and drowned out behind the guitars and keyboards to get an accurate representation of just how damned good this guy is. As for Jon Theodore, the man is a beast on a drum kit and the fact that his skill has been pushed to the very back of the mix is a grave error of production. Basically Omar needs to quit be so self-indulgent with his random guitar meanderings and focus more on the band playing in the pocket rather than screwing around with ambient noise and studio mixing tricks.

Don't get the wrong impression, the album isn't entirely made up of the noise usually reserved to fill the spaces between songs on their studio albums and there are actually a couple of sweet spots which really are jaw-dropping. Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt, which closes the De-Loused album unpredictably opens up the set on Scabdates and is probably the feature moment of the performance, and Concertina, an early version of Eriatarka, soars with melody and technicality.

If you're a die hard fan of The Mars Volta I suppose this is a nice addition to your collection, if only for completist purposes, but newcomers will be tempted to shy away from the band if this is their first impression, and should probably opt for the safer, nay fool-proof route, sticking to De-Loused In The Comatorium and Frances The Mute.

The album contains three stretched songs capturing the unique experience of The Mars Volta live performances. Their songs never sound the same! I haven't heard such a band since Led Zeppelin. The most of today's bands try to reproduce the studio versions of their songs as close as possible. This band does the opposite and the effect is stunning! And beware! This is not a fast food music! Linkin' Park fans keep away! And don't write reviews!

quick fix pop songs are nowhere to be found. that being said, the mars volta isn't sending out a search party any time soon, and they aren't apologizing for it either. volta continues to make music for the appreciation of fellow musicians. even if the sonic aesthetics of hallucination-quality dense improv aren't your bag, the pure musicianship displayed by the entire band is undeniable. i've seen volta live twice (a 2 1/2 hour 1 AM set at bonnaroo '05 and september 30, '05 in chicago with system of a down)and the one aspect of their music that i hoped this live album would address is their mastery of dense chaos; and the ability to escape it and roll into intense rhythms. this is best illustrated in the transition from track 10 to 11 of cicatriz. loop-based guitar squelches gather to a head and suddenly sink into a sinister descending bassline syncopated with some of the best arpeggiated improv riffs i've heard. cedric's ghostlike vocal improv fits perfectly into the airy feel of this particular section. the last section of track layering is quite an avant garde approach, which the music world has learned is to be expected of volta. it seems like a vignette of the backstage memories of a performer following a tiring set of marathon jamming coupled with excited conversation about the performance among bandmates. the only things i was left wanting more of was adrian terrazas' woodwind witchcraft... and maybe some of the brass belligerence of miranda or cassandra. all in all, a worthwhile purchase and more importantly, worth repeat listens. however, this album should come with a warning label for musicians: "Overexposure may cause periods of intense excitement followed by thoughts of musical inadequacey which may or may not render your own creative efforts hopelessly meager in comparison." I also encourage you to take that bath requested of you at the end of the 72 minutes... you may not have noticed but you've been splattered with intestines and various other entrails during the performance and require similar attention as someone leaving a macabre Gallagher performance.

Initially I found myself wondering how much time the mars volta would be wasting with stuff life "Abrasions mount the timpani". It turns out that the warmup round pretty much continies until "take the veil cerpin taxt:gust of mutts" comes out with an intense sonic front, hypnotically live-sounding. The songs build and build. Your home version of the live experience keeps coming on harder and more convincing. And y the time you hear the final words "thanks for coming out everybody, go home and take a bath" you really do feel like taking a bath. And possibly starting the disc over

Sources say that there were 19 people that contributed to the live show. And I can hear it. Im impressed with the manner in which these songs are accomplished outside of the studio.

If you like the mars volta... You know the drill..

If you dont allready like them, always keep listening.. Because eventually you will find yourself tapping and humming along to some melody that you found annoying at first. And when you succumb to that. Your entertained!

These guys are some of the best musicians to come around since the 70's. Even before they formed Mars Volta, they were shelling out unbelievable tracks as At the Drive-in. As for this album, alot of tracks seemed unknown to me (or at least sounded alot different than the studio albums). But that's just because they are the masters of improv. This album is a mass of messed up abrasive melodies and drums, which all makes complete since when taken as a whole. One thing I love about the Mars Volta is that, you can't (for the most part) sit and listen to them and tap your hands and feet to a particular beat, cause once you start to, it changes into something completely different. All you can do is listen, and either talk to a friend or sit back and daydream about colors and shapes. If that sounds like fun to you, do not let this one go! One other thing, get their other 2 albums, they are both incredible too.