Weekly Poll: Favorite The Mars Volta Album

Rank em, tell us why, or just pick one.

Link to all of the other polls here. You can leave suggestions for new polls there or here. Whatevs.

 

Frances >

 

De-Loused but Frances is a close second.

 

De-Loused, but I've never even heard anything after Frances.

 

Went Frances, but shout out to Bedlam, which I've always enjoyed.

 

Deloused = Frances > Amputecture > Bedlam > Oct > Noct

Voted Deloused because I throw it on more often, an easier listen than Frances.

 

frances. it isn’t that complicated for me.

 

They never topped De-Loused.

 

you at least owe it to yourself to check out Amputechture and Bedlam

 

De Loused

 

Frances is my number one, but each album is incredible. I know a lot of people don't like Octahedron and Noctourniquet. But I have a mood for all of them. Currently I'm having a weird fase and I like the weirdness of Bedlam.

I hope this band returns!

 

I looove Octahedron. Serene and strange. Noct is good but I never got into the full record, only select songs. Amputecture is also flames, unbelievably great record—almost haunting in a mythical kind of way lol.

 

I respect Frances, but if I'm being completely honest, I've never once listened to it front-to-back and it's the least enjoyable listen to me. I mean, I appreciate prog, but that record's solid half hour of noodling noise passages make Pink Floyd's Animals look like ABBA. Still, the best 10 minutes of music on it are bliss.

Anyway, Bedlam's the one.

 

I actually made an edited cut of the album years ago which cut out all the ambience and I used to listen to that pretty often. It cut the album down by 12 minutes, haha. I never listen to it anymore, but it certainly has a purpose.

 

Good timing, I just finished a full discography revisit. I’m pretty confident of where I stand now after listening with fresh ears:

Deloused
Frances
Bedlam
Amputechture
Octahedron
Noctourniquet

I remember hating Octahedron when it came out but I really like it now. Maybe it just wasn’t as in your face as Bedlam. Cedrics voice was more grating on Bedlam this go around but that album is still wild

 

Noctourniquet is sick, I seem to like it way more than anyone else. such a cool psych-y feel to that album, I was obsessed when it first came out

"Empty Vessels" is still one of my favourite TMV songs

 

Love De-Loused by imo, Frances is the better record. I highly recommend listening to the album with the title track first as it was originally intended, it makes the album feel more complete and adds to the experience. That said, totally understandable as to why people don’t dig all the ambient parts or the whole length of the record itself.

 

Also, FTM to me is like how I view MBV’s Loveless, both are masterpieces created by one person who refused to compromise on their artistic vision. Like it’s totally insane that Omar made each player rehearse those songs note by note slowly until he felt they understood why each note is there and so on but when you listen to the album, you can totally tell by the playing how effective that was.

 

As far the other albums go, Amputecture is cool, Bedlam is alright but I feel like the backstory of the recording is more interesting than the actual album. The other two are a haze to me because I don’t really remember much about them from my initial listens.

 

Frances, De Loused, Bedlam. The rest I have never really gone back to. Nothing touches Relationship of Command but those three especially are great additions to the guys' overall catalogue. And if you don't have the patience for the more meandering parts of their albums I wouldn't recommend seeing them live, but I think they were really solid live.

 

Gonna be writing papers all day so I guess I'll give the more recent albums a run,.

 

I only gave The Bedlam in Goliath and Noctourniquet a proper listen the other week and both are really good. Deantoni Parks drumming on Noctourniquet in particular is fucking great. And that album has a very eerie vibe throughout that I dig. And the jazz fusion vibes on TBIG are really interesting too. Got early Santana vibes from it too.

 

I think Vermicide and Day of the Baphomets are the only two I like off Amputecture, but holy fuck Baphomets is TMV at their best.

 

Meccamputechture tho!

 

Three songs into Bedlam, I already like this a lot more.