My history with the bands Omar Rodriguez-Lopez was in, definitely does not start from day 1. In fact At the drive-in released their first album "Acrobatic Tenement" in 1996. I didn't discover them till 2000 and by that time they already had 5 records out. I think the main reason why was because they are from El Paso, Texas and had not really reached British Shores yet. But when "Relationship of Command came out that changed everything. They appeared on the front cover of NME which was where I discovered them. The cover showed the band where two of them sported afros and I thought to myself - I wonder what kind of music they make.
I hadn't actually heard them on the radio or TV by this point but decided to pick up "Relationship of command" from the record shop anyway. And it was fantastic - so high energy - mature punk rock at its finest. I say mature as they weren't in the same category as Blink 182 or anything like that. But it was strange to see a band like this in NME rather than Kerrang given how heavy and explosive they were. I remember they played a gig at the Arches in Glasgow. I was too young at the time to go but one of the guys at school, James M liked them too and was so tall he could get into gigs when he was underage easily. He said the gig was amazing.
I did go back and buy a few of At the drive-in's earlier albums but didn't really like them that much and nothing really stood out for me unlike "Relationship of Command". Some of the albums were actually really hard to get hold of as they took a while to make a name for themselves therefore not readily available. And the irony is when they did finally make a name for themselves they went on a "indefinite hiatus".
It was quite a few years later where I heard what the various members had been upto since the split. Singer Cedric and Omar formed The Mars Volta while other members went onto form Sparta. I never bought any Sparta albums but they are still going. But the true talent of At the drive-in came from Omar and Cedric. Those were the days before Twitter and Facebook so I was actually unaware the released an EP and then their first album "De-Loused in the Commatorium". They actually supported the Red hot chili peppers on an arena tour round the UK with that album too. Something I was gutted I missed when I eventually discovered their existence.
But when I did discover them and bought "De-Loused" what I found was a terrific album. At the Drive-in were so ferocious and straight to the point. The Mars Volta still had this intensity but they let their ideas flourish without boundaries. Leading to longer and even better tracks. "Cicatriz Esp" especially was like 12 minutes long and has such a great build up and then climax. "Televators" was another favourite as it was more of a dreamy chilled out track.
In 2005, The Mars Volta released their second album "Frances the Mute" with lead single "The Widow". This was the only single to come off the album since it was the only track on the album that was less than 10 minutes long! This was actually one of the first album reviews I ever did and I actually said at the beginning of it on first listen it just sounds like a complete mess. They actually had to split up a few of the longer tracks in order to call it an album rather than a five track EP. I am glad I stuck with this album though as I still think its one of the best records in my CD collection. I mean the last track "Cassandra Gemmni" is 32 minutes long and they totally pull it off. But there really is so much to discover and unearth on this album. Its just the album that keeps on giving.
I actually went to see The Mars Volta when they toured this album at the Barrowlands. I was with my brother and I'm pretty sure one of the guys I used to work with, Ronnie and his mate were there too. As we had quite a crossover in tastes of music. This was the first and last time I'll get to see "Cassandra Gemmini" played live I think given its length and the amount of material they have now. One thing I also loved though was the extended jams and the energy they put into their performance.
After releasing Frances the Mute though where on earth do you go with your next album?! The answer was "Amputechture". This wasn't an album I really got into that much. "Viscera Eyes" was a great song and had this amazing riff. I did get into some other tracks later on down the road but in general I skipped over this record and they didn't actually tour Scotland with this record either.
Then they pulled me back in when they released "The Bedlam in Goliath". This was a slightly less prog record than the first 3 outings. But it still had that Mars Volta stamp on it. I really got into this album though and during the 3-4 months after it came out I was listening to nothing else. The track "Goliath" in particular was epic. I went to see them on this tour too with a guy called Phil and his mates who I had met through friends from school. It was at the then Carling Academy in Glasgow. It was clear then they were getting even better live as the jams got longer as well as the random improv bits between songs. They had no support either and played for 3 hours. This was the last time I saw them on tour.
It wasn't long till their next album got released. Bedlam was 2008 and the next album "Octahedron" was out the very next year. I actually always thought of this album as an EP since it was only 8 tracks. But looking back on it, its actually still more of an album that most out there. 50 minutes run time says it all. "Since we've been wrong" was such a great song that really stood out for me on this one. I wouldn't say the album was De-loused, frances the mute or Bedlam level but it wasn't far behind.
There was a 3 year gap to their 6th studio album "Noctourniquet" which was to be Mars Volta's final album as they split after this. This was an album I thought was a real let down. Mars Volta have a reputation for being exciting, imaginative and really trying to stand out from the crowd. This album really had none of those things and felt like the passion had just been sucked out of each member. It was almost like they knew that so just called it a day.
In terms of Omar's solo stuff, his first album "A Manual Dexterity: Soundtrack Volume 1" was released 2004. While he was in the The Mars Volta he released a number of albums. In fact through to when Mars Volta had split in 2012 he had released 25 albums. So maybe "released a number of albums" maybe a bit of an understatement. I reviewed 5 of these albums. Normally with another artist reviewing that many albums would cover over a decades worth of music from that artists career. With Omar reviewing this number of albums feels like I'm just scratching the surface. And remember he was the lead writer in one of the biggest progressive rock bands during the 2000s while producing and writing these 25 other records. The albums I did listen to, and I did listen to more than I reviewed. I found that the albums were very diverse and also some suited my tastes and some didn't while others languished somewhere in between. One of my favourites was The Apocolypse Inside Of an Orange. One of the tracks on here in particular used the riff from Viscera eyes as the kind of backbone to the track. But this lasted 20 minutes and was absolutely mesmerising.
But after these 25 albums Omar was far from done. In fact between 2013-2017 he released another 27 solo albums. In fact at the end of 2016, start of 2017 he released an album every week. It was almost impossible for anyone to keep up even if they could afford to give that much to one artist. And to my knowledge only a handful of these albums are actually on Spotify. There is some good stuff in there though from what I have listened to.
Omar also formed a band called Bosnian Rainbows and later with Cedric a band called Amtemasque after the demise of Mars Volta. Both bands were short lived and released an album with each of them. They were ok albums but I knew they were capable of so much more. Then At the drive-in reformed and released int er a li a. It wasn't quite as good as Relationship of command but it wasn't far off. It was enough to put them back on the map and start playing to bigger crowds again which still hadn't forgotten them from their glory days in the Mars Volta. I went to see them as part of this tour with Campbell. They were still going as crazy as ever on stage. Most of the performance was mainly sticking to how the songs were played on record rather than going off on tangents like they did in the Mars Volta shows. But it was still an amazing gig.
The real question with Omar is just how many albums has he got left in him. He has been involved in so many you just wonder at what stage do you run out of ideas.
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