CD Review

You may get The Mars Volta’s Texas bred prog-rock or you may not. And chances are, whichever side of the fence you’re on, you’ll still be sitting there after this latest release. Scabdates, the band’s first live album following there two bionic releases, De-Loused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute, captures their stage mayhem in 73 minutes recorded between May 2004 and May 2005.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s lofty, high pitched vocals are oblique and the raging compositions disperse in unrecognizable directions. It’s exploratory, and expansive, but often so disjointed it can seem like pure genius, or just totally self-indulgent. Through the course of one song, you can wonder where they’re going time and time again - never more evident than the entire three part, 13-minute “Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt.” That is until you get to the 38 minute, five part closer “Cicatriz,” which is more than enough to solidify you as a true Mars Volta believer, or turn you away for good.

As the grandiose tune comes to a close, Bixler announces “thanks for coming out everybody, go home and take a bath.” It’s the only decipherable words he says, but if you can take in the whole disc, they get their point across loud and clear long before they send you home.