Oh mon dieu? To review a Mars Volta album is like taking an acid trip. Their weird and unique combo of styles has for some cool reason become very popular around the globe. I mean, we?re talking a mix of Frank Zappa, Rush, Primus, System Of A Down and Sparta ? how commercial is that? But as I wrote ? it is. When Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler silenced At the Drive-In in the midst of its popular emergence, there was no question that the two artists would return with new music as exciting as their previous band and The Mars Volta is a very popular band around the globe these days. Even more popular than the cult rated At The Drive-In they use to ?run?. I could even say that they perhaps are the biggest name on the prog-scene (or prog-scene? it is so much more but I think you?ll get the grip?). So what about the new album ?Amputechture? then? Is it as good as their two previous studioalbums? Yes is the answer to that question. The band is so damn ultracool and unique in what their doin? so you can just sit there and be so impressed with them. The musicianship is W O R L D C L A S S as we all know, the production is perfect and the trippy atmosphere in the songwriting is? well? something you won?t hear on other albums. It?s a journey to outer space and back. It?s not an album to make love to though. But I don?t think that is what Omar and Cedric had in mind when they wrote and recorded the material. Or perhaps it is just that they had.
The name City and Colour comes from his own name: The city Dallas and The Color Green. His reasoning for the name was that he felt uneasy "putting the album out under the name Dallas Green."
