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Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Se Dice Bisonte, No Bůfalo CD (album) cover

SE DICE BISONTE, NO BůFALO

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez

Eclectic Prog


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4 stars This album gave me a lot more than I expected, and its the first album in a long while to do so. I have heard all the Mars Volta albums, excepting Bedlam in Goliath, which seems to be out in other places but not where I am, and this album is a distinctly new taste. I didn't care much for Deloused, I really liked Frances the Mute, and had mixed feelings for Amputechture. Now, seeing as how many Volta members are present on this album, I didn't expect an entirely different sound, but the music surprised me and delighted me. For one thing, the keyboard is actually audible, which almost neever happened on any Volta album, and I really like it. The saxophone is also far more important here, whereas with the Volta, the dual guitar interplay combined with the thundering drums and screaming vocals drowned out these elements. Cedric does sing here, but not on every song, but not every song has vocals, so he sings in all the vocal songs.

The Lukewarm/Luxury of Infancy: The lukewarm is just a few random noises to introduce you to Omar's style, reminiscent of John Frusciante's solo material, of introducing songs with electronic expermentation. The luxury of infancy is a bit of a duet for Frusciante and Omar, with a great melody, and getting a little hectic near the end. Excellent Opener.

Rapid Fire Tollbooth: A bluesy guitar riff bursts in and a sax solos in the background. Cedric's unique voice comes in, but it doesnt sound like the Mars Volta. The drums are nothing special, but heavily pound down the beat to support it all. A sax solo comes in after the first chorus and its greeeat. During the chorus, Cedric starts to hit his signature high notes, but not to excess. Another sax interlude follows the second chorus, but very soon the electric guitar takes the lead. A stunning, heavily distorted solo is what follows, and Omar shows us he enjoys blowing off his chops just as much as the next axe-man. A final chorus brings this song to a close.

Thermometer drinking the Business of Turnstiles: An interlude of sorts, beginning with the leftover spacey sounds from Tollbooth, and adding other synth-induced drones. Soon some high, eerie piano notes enter, as well as a guitar part that sounds like its saying things to you. This all builds, then fades away into nothing as...

Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo: The piano brings us into this masterful song, as well as some soulful crooning from Cedric. A horn section introduces the main theme, and Cedric can be heard, but the effect on his voice is so strong you cannot understand the words. The passion brings you to the edge of your seat, however. As the drums add their flair, Cedric jumps up several octaves. The pure emotion of this song is overwhelming. A bit of a guitar solo bridges the gap to the next part, and Cedric continues to mourn. After a second build up, the horn part slows down, only to blast up again as the guitar takes a true solo and the drums pick up the pace. The piano makes for a great pseudo-rhythm section in the background, and Cedric jumps in again to build the emotion. Overall, the best song I have ever heard come from these guys, under Omar or the Mars Volta.

If Gravity Lulls, I can hear the World Pant: True to the nonsensical name, this song is very strange and experimental. A number of guitars come in to start it, each with a different effect distorting or enhancing it. The melody is simple though, but halfway through it turns to mush, and then the bongos come in. Omar takes another solo, juxtaposing the traditional spanish drums with modern heavy metal guitar for an amazingly unique sound. Then the original sound takes over again, and there is a slight break before the monstrosity that is...

Please Heat this Eventually: Originally a 25 minute EP with Damo Suzuki starring on vocals, the vocals have been removed and the length cut by more than half for the album. It is a hugely varied, sprawling jazz/fusiony jam that takes you to many places, none of them relaxing or audibly beautiful. The odd sounds go on for a minute or so, until the sax and guitar bust in with the massive bongos once again trucking away underneath. The big thing on this song is the hammond organ, which sounds amaaaaaaaaazing. All three instruments seem to be soloing at once, but at the same time, they are keeping the main riff together. Slowly, the melody/riff disintegrates into pure madness, but it is controlled madness. Sax and guitar trade sonic blasts as the main riff slowly fades into view again. This continues for a long while, but never gets boring, as the guitar and sax continue to produce unthinkable phrases and notes. After a while, the sax settles into a simple riff while the guitar reeeeally takes off. its hard to tell how many notes Omar is playing because of the combination of distortion and Low-register notes. At about 8:40, everything but the drums cut out to reveal there actually is a bassist playing! He takes a solo, both lyrical and technical, and it results in the dissolving of the beat and turns into a free form solo, while the guitar solos in the distance. The sound of this bass is monstrous! After a bit, the bass drum finds its groove again, and the bass starts echoing spacily. Now the sax takes a final solo while the bass settles into a funky bass line. This gets increasingly more frenetic as it goes on, and finally everything comes back in with the main riff to finish this insane freakout.

Lurking About in a Cold Sweat (Held together by Venom): A nice electric piano theme introduces us while the bass has some nice underlying work. At key moments, the electric guitar comes in with very strange noises that only add to the eerie atmosphere. The whole intro sounds like its coming out of a telephone. Then the bongos come in and the electric guitar takes a slow, deliberate solo that rends the ears. Throughout this, the song sounds like its skipping and missing pieces, but I take it as a very creative use of silence, something Robert Fripp developed. The song seems to be cut off at the end, and it jumps right into the funky jazziness of...

Boiling Death Request a Body to Rest its head on: The percussion section is very spanish, as is the lead guitar and bassline. When the sax takes the lead, however, it is so angular it cannot be placed into any category. It sounds much like David Jackson of VDGG. The guitar takes the lead again, giving me notes and themes I could never possibly think up if I had 10 years of solely playing guitar. Now the guitar becomes as angular as the sax, and no longer has any idea of a key that it is soloing in. The song ends with some weird voices, and jumps right into...

La Tirania de la Tradicion: A blasting, kick-start drum beat throws you right into the chaos of this song, with heavy guitar and weird noises, as well as some more unintelligeble Cedric singing. The keyboard in the background carries the main theme, while the guitar cannot make up its mind as to which riff it should stick to. Then out of nowhere, the heavy riffing gets even more intense, sounding like Dream Theater, and then switching into something so strange its hard to say if its music or not. The guitar is riffing, but covered by such a myriad of sounds and effects its hard to hear the notes themselves. The song cuts off abruptly, leaving the listener wanting more.

Overall, I think Omar does much better under his own name than under the Mars Volta, and I think they should continue in this style, seeing as how the Mars Volta seem to be on a downward trend, although I cannot say that for sure as I have yet to listen to the Bedlam in Goliath.

Report this review (#160078)
Posted Monday, January 28, 2008 | Review Permalink
snobb
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator
4 stars I know there are many listeners ( and even The Mars Volta fans) who hates O-R-L solo works. And I understand them very well - it depends what are you searching in your music. Even TMV albums have quite controversial fame. Yes, they are noisy, dirty, with strange sounds combinations, not very clear structure (often), and many respectable listeners hate this chaos (and Cedric Bixler-Zavala vocals as well).

Then, speaking about many O-R-L solo albums, such kind of problem is only increasing. In this album ( as in many other his solo works) vocalist is the same. There are less order, more chaos, less structure and all music in whole is not mellow or pleasant. Even worst - this music isn't even heavy enough to be accepted by metalheadz. So - you really should be a strange person for listening such a crazy work.

If after all was said you're still interested, I can shortly tell you what can you expect there. Because of same vocals and similar roots, you will easy feel the connection between this album and any TMV work. Same melancholic if beauty acoustic/electric guitar tunes, same strange sound mixes, same voice. But - everything is much more chaotically mixed, without heaviness, but with strong psychedelic scent. With plenty of beautiful melodies, excellent guitar work, huge amount of jazz fusion arrangements, electronic loops.

Much more experimental, than any TMV album. It's understandable - TMV is commercial project, it brings fame and money. Solo works are usually commercial nonsense, but it's a laboratory for experiments and heaven for musician's soul. Not all materials there are of the same high value, some pieces are just sounding garbage. And what? If you really want to hear alive music with its nervous, soul and monsters inside - it's a best place. If you prefer a bit more polished (and respectable) product - go to TMV releases. And if you're really interested in The Mars Volta world - albums like this is "must have" ones for you.

P.S. Not for lovers of mellow music. Sorry.

Report this review (#275918)
Posted Friday, April 2, 2010 | Review Permalink
Kempokid
COLLABORATOR
Prog Metal Team
4 stars Omar Rodriguez Lopez's solo career continues to prove how it's extremely worth listening to with Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo, which is likely one of the moodiest, most emotional displays of his talent out there. While the playing style applied here often bears heavy similarities to that of The Mars Volta, to the point where you've got an early version of a song from Bedlam in Goliath on it, there are so many interesting differences between this album and anything from TMV or really anything that Omar made beforehand, to the point where it ends up feeling like an undeniably essential album for ORL fans. Even Rapid Fire Tollbooth reveals just how many fundamental differences there are in terms of approach to music despite blatantly being an early version of what would become Goliath on The Mars Volta's next album. Rather than a constant auditory assault or even just a song with a lot of energy, Rapid Fire Tollbooth feels strangely lethargic, lingering on each note for what feels like a tiny bit too long. This has the effect of giving the song a very unique atmosphere that's drenched in anxiety and an ominous tone without ever resorting to ORL's typical frenetic style. This all ends up culminating in a song that sounds and feels entirely different to its later counterpart despite having the same basic skeleton, and it represents the album pretty well as a whole, where it continues to have this sense of familiarity while also being entirely different.

Most of the album goes for a more abstract, jam oriented approach and I feel like it works exceptionally well to bring more focus to how tonally strong it is. The title track, Thermometer Drinking, Lurking About in a Cold Sweat, and a few other songs all follow a pretty similar structure, just applied to different soundscapes. You've got these varied backdrops for Omar to go wild and play guitar over, sometimes sounding glacial, building off this one idea for extended periods of time, but other feel far more fast paced in their direction, as if it already knows where it wants to go and wants to reach that point as fast as possible. This is especially interesting when it comes to the title track, one of the 3 songs here that gets Cedric to come on as a vocalist, and this is the one that I feel makes the best use of him. To reinforce the theme and direction of this album, the words he sings here are completely incomprehensible and obscured by a plethora of effects. As such, it feels as if all these frivolous elements of the music have been stripped back and left the listener with a vocalist who is singing with pure emotion, with any hints of coherency that sneaks through solely serving the purpose of elevating this. The somewhat sluggish first half of this also has the additional benefit of making the intensely passionate climax in the 2nd half feel all the more satisfying, and acts as a perfect representation of one of the most intriguing songs in ORL's discography.

Outside of this, there are a couple of other noteworthy tracks as well. The version of Please Heat This Eventually is a pretty interesting case, as while it lacks Damo Suzuki's presence, which was my favourite aspect of the EP version of this, there's a much greater sense of focus here that feels as if it never wastes a note. I still think that I prefer the expansive madness of the ep version but both of these are completely fine ways of experiencing this great song. The closing track is mainly worth mentioning for how unapologetically chaotic it is, once again utilising Cedric's vocals in a fun, unconventional way, in this case to further contribute to the total insanity by wailing in a completely offputting, yet strangely fun way, and it just closes things off in a really neat way. Overall, Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo is a truly wonderful experience that feels like it's Omar exploring just how much can be achieved with his style without ever trying to fully abandon it. Undoubtedly what I'd consider to be his finest solo moment up to this point, even if he'd manage to outdo himself just one album later with Apocalypse Inside of an Orange. This is definitely one of his most popular albums for a reason, total classic.

Best tracks: Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo, Please Heat This Eventually, Lurking About in a Cold Sweat

Report this review (#2638054)
Posted Monday, November 29, 2021 | Review Permalink

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