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The Mars Volta - Tremulant EP CD (album) cover

TREMULANT EP

The Mars Volta

 

Heavy Prog

3.31 | 132 ratings

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frenchie
Prog Reviewer
4 stars As far as debut EP's go, this is spectacular. It shows off the power of the mars volta and is a brilliant prelude to their proper debut, Deloused in the Comatorium. This EP manages to flow well as each song strings together as one without any gaps inbetween. This technique was also used on the full length concept album. The mars volta are also renown for their amazing introductions to a record.

"Cut That City" has a 2 minute intro of strange buzzing sounds and quiet guitar effects which is similar to the incredible "Son et Lumiere". It is also similar in the way that it explodes into loud guitar fuelled noise. This song shows off the power and progressive abilities of the band as well as Cedrics ghostly vocals. This is truely incredible stuff.

This Flows into "Concertina" and picks up with a continuous flow of fiddley guitar pieces, long instrumentals but the vocals are often drowned out by the ferocious guitar playing. This is a shame as Cedric has such a wonderful voice but luckily the band improved their production vastly on their studio album. Still it's only an EP so you cant exactly expect a masterpiece.

"Eunuch Provacateur" is a dizzying rush yet has also has its slower parts on the album. The lyrics are excellent and explore different languages. The last few minutes of the song show off the bands trippy guitar effects. This is a very similar outro to the special UK edition of Deloused in the Comatorium. This shows similarities to the middle section of "Cicatriz ESP" and the ending bonus track, "Ambuletz" but its can become reptitive and boring and ends up dragging the album down because it just goes on too long. I think the bands dizzy guitar effects are good here though and the band are really good at doing it, just it can be very daring in places.

Tremulant is one of the best debut EP's since Tool's "Opiate" and if you loved Deloused in the Comatorium then i highly recommend you track this down for more volta, especially if you cant wait for the new album!

frenchie | 4/5 |

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