SCAB DATES

Ah, a live glimpse of The Mars Volta, one of the greatest, most mind blowing bands of the current age. After De-Loused and the absolute masterpiece of Frances, not many people know where TMV are going to go next. They are extremely unpredictable (in a good way of course), and this seems to be the interim album, recording between, I think, May 2004 and May 2005.

Even a real, die-hard Mars Volta fan would look at the back of the album, look at the tracks, and recognize only two or three tracks from the entire thing. Take the Veil..., Concertina, and Cicatriz would ring some bells, but we'd get confused by the absence of the "ESP" after the word "Cicatriz".

Also, the weird track listing is enough to throw anyone off. Take The Veil... and Cicatriz have two and 4 subsection, respectively. However, they are separate songs. What I mean is this: Take the Veil is track two, and its two sections are 3 and 4. Odd, huh. Well, that's how they do it. It's more adding on two sections to Take the Veil... and adding 4 sections to Cicatriz, which does the same thing.

Anywho, on to the album itself. The Mars Volta live is much different than studio TMV. They've always been a more loose-feeling, semi-jamming band, but live, that influence is fully taken through. The free, seemingly drug-induced jamming thrives throughout, and it is fantastic. (To explain why I say drug-induced, just listen to the 4 sub-parts of Cicatriz, what with the bits of no music and voices right in the middle of all the stuff.)

Also, one note is that Cedric's vocals are really changed. Just listen to the way he sings "A mass of gallon sloth" in Take the Veil... I personally think that Cedric is in the top 5 vocalists of current times, among the best of all time as well. He's just... different, live. It takes a bit of getting used to, I'm not gonna lie.

Yet, overall, it provides for some enjoyable stuff. I love the band, and this is a very good output from them. 3/5 stars.

Big apology for hard core fans of The Mars Volta. This time I have to give one star rating because this live album has nothing to offer at all. It's probably the band tries to express their weirdo through much more exploration on sound effects. Not onle that sound effects that bother me but also the sonic quality of the CD. It sounds like a bootleg recording with no effort to make the sound mixing smoother. I don't know on which angle people could enjoy this album. Oh yeas, I do enjoy the band's "Deloused .." and "Frances The Mute" albums. But in this album, I cannot find which angle I should position my ears to digest the music wholeheartedly. Too many distortions produced from guitar. The sounds are too raw and too rough. But that's what makes this album interesting for some people. But it's not for me. Sorry, I still have other good prog albums worth listening than this one. Big apology for those die hard fans. Even though it's poor but I own it also for the sake of having a complete set of TMV albums. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Few live albums are able to convey to the listener the live experience. THE MARS VOLTA are a stupendous live band: how does this album measure up?

Dismally, in a word.

A THE MARS VOLTA concert generally has more shape than this, more energy, more presence. The amount of studio tinkering has laid an impenetrable plastic surface on this performance, making it almost impossible for me to enjoy. The songs are practically unrecognisable jamfest extensions of the originals. I have bootlegs that far better reflect the live THE MARS VOLTA experience. What a swizz - robbing fans a chance to hear their favourite TMV songs live! (Unless your three favourite songs are Cicatriz, Concertina and Take the Veil.) We don't need a 42 minute version of 'Cicatriz'.

There's a great deal to admire here, but not much to enjoy. Don't judge THE MARS VOLTA on this disc. Go catch 'Drunkship' or 'Roulette Dares' on YouTube instead.

Fans of Mars Volta who haven't seen the band live yet (like me), will probably be disappointed by this attempt to capture a performance which comes across as too ephemeral to understand second-hand; there is a lot going on here, but much of it is so abstract as to be unintelligible directly-- it's best just to go along for the ride.

That being said, "Scab Dates" features powerful versions of a few great Mars Volta songs, which have plenty of improvisation and tweaked moments to almost make them unrecognizable until Bixler sings a chorus or two. The moments where we do get to listen to straightforward guitar destruction and various instrumental awesomeness is quite enjoyable.

The end result is one which will usually impress the listener but also leave them scratching their head, wondering just what the heck is going on stage at the time... or why the middle of songs fade to voyeuristic/psychedelic voice-overs and fadeouts. These crazy moments do detract from the music, but, hey-- you like Mars Volta BECAUSE they're crazy, right?

Setlist 2 Instrumental Performances 4 Stage Energy 3 Live Experience 4

This one gets a lot of heat around here. It's quite clear why. Scab Dates is an egregious attempt at recreating a Mars Volta live experience on CD. I had a bad feeling about this one, truthfully, but I am a loyal, confident fan, so I bought it on release date as usual...

The album is comprised of only 3 actual songs: "Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt," "Concertina," and "Cicatriz," and each song has its own improvised intro which is given its own track and title. The disc still passes 70 minutes, as the band jams out a lot. As soon as you start the album its apparent that the album has been heavily produced...in a studio. The intro of the album, "Abrasions Mount the Timpani," is loaded with studio effects and samples of babies crying before we actually get to the performance. The Mars Volta do open their shows with some music or sounds before they actually play, but it's nothing at all like this. When the music finally kicks in, you'll notice that the recording quality isn't great. This is already looking dismal. When "Take the Veil" gets going, you can tell that the band is pretty tight and all, but Cedric's voice can be, well, not great. Pulling off some of his stuff live is difficult, but he's getting better every year. This recording, besides not doing his voice justice, obviously lacks the visual element. Anyone who has seen the band live knows that Cedric is a mad man on stage. Therefore, we can give some grace for messy vocals, but here we have no idea what's going on. He's not always off, but he's not ever what we'd expect of him. The band plays well, and gets into great jams (again, they are getting better every year), but some of it can get a little boring to sit and listen to or the post-recording studio splicing (specifically in the 40-minute rendition of Cicatriz) ruins the feel of the music. The jams can be phenominal, but the poor recording and studio botching can simply ruin the vibe.

For a fan, this is worth listening to. I listen to it maybe once or twice a year, but when I do listen I am able to get into the jams. It's got some seriously great moments, but generally it's not worth your time when you could listen to a studio album. For those interested in hearing how the band sounds live, avoid this album! Go see them! The Mars Volta put on an inexplicable show and what an experience it is! If you can't for some reason (there is no reason), just wait until another release is available; it's inevitable that they'll put out a DVD. For non-fans, this will not convert you. Why aren't you a fan anyway? For those who are hostile against the group, this will probably just give you more material to bash, and for once we Volta fans will actually have to concede to your arguments, because you actually have a foundation for this one.

Never miss an opportunity to see them live, and never take Scab Dates as a substitute!

The Mars Volta - SCABDATES

By progkidjoel

The Mars Volta are said to be one of the best acts of modern prog by many - for what its worth, they've even got an album in the ProgArchives top 100. This is definitely not the reason why, and is one of the worst live performances/recordings I've ever been tortured by. I would do a track by track analysis of this album as I usually write, but I don't feel this pitiful attempt deserves my time or effort.

To begin with, there is zero musicianship displayed on this album - Nothing special, original, clever, and for the majority, nothing even listenable. The tracks are all incredibly bleak and uninteresting, and are recorded and played at an incredibly low standard. To be honest, I wouldn't even reccomend this disc to completionists of The Mars Volta (Yes, it really is that bad.) A terrible introduction to The Mars Volta, this disc recieves my lowest rating thus far, and for good reason - Its just that bad.

I really can't reccomend this disc to anyone - Its just terrible. Invest the money in a quality album from another band, put it towards a car, buy a new shirt, whatever, just avoid this disc at all costs!

1 out of 5. (Deserves nothing more)

-Joel

Hmmm..., pity news. I think that Mars Volta is for a moment one of the best heavy prog band in the world. Their "Frances The Mute" is absolutely masterpiece. But what do we have there, in their first official live album?

First of all, the sound quality could be much more better. Then, music and voice isn't the same you are expecting from studio album. If the music is just different - more heavy metal, more rhythm and drive, less different acoustic pieces and stylistical changes, the voice is just not as good as recorded in studio!

Because of muddy production, you can't hear all guitar nuances and sound texture. Everything is just mixed in one sound wave. Heavy prog became post-punk/metal/grunge noise.

Of course, point of view depends on listener. For heavy Mars Volta fans album isn't bad and just shows another band's face. But for regular listener it's could be quite boring and noisy work without any attractions in it.

Whenever I can't be very neutral ( as a fan of Mars Volta), I think that three is a good mark there.

I don't know who was doing the recording, but almost everything on Scab Dates sounds terribly murky, as Omar Rodriguez-Lopez's playing is incredibly sloppy throughout the show. And quite frankly, Cedric Bixler-Zavala sounds absolutely trashed- I shudder to speculate what substances were flowing through his veins that night as he wailed off key and muddied the lyrics. At times, the improvisational jams that make some of the familiar songs completely unrecognizable are interesting or even good, but most of the time, they consist of unbearable nonsense played at excruciating volumes. Most of the material is taken from the Tremulent EP and De-Loused in the Comatorium (at least in name only, since the music is vastly different). The entire first track consists of nothing more than horrific noises. "Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt" begins decently enough (relatively speaking), but gets mangled along the way. "Caviglia" seems like a waste of three minutes, with its harrowingly empty sound, but I tend to enjoy their recitation of "Concertina" that follows. "Haruspex" is a jumbled mess of noise with a few pleasing moments (like Isaiah Ikey Owens's brief organ work). One exciting aspect of this album are the sudden transitions from one song to the next. "Circatriz ESP" is extended to a massive finale, which is unquestionably the highlight of the disc and its real saving grace (well, the first half of it, at any rate). Owens and Rodriguez-Lopez trade some impressive solos over Juan Alderete's excellent bass work, and Jon Theodore's drumming is top notch with Marcel Rodriguez lending a hand to fill out the sound. Much of the final piece consists of Rodriguez-Lopez fooling around with his guitar and echo box over a repetitive riff, which is fun for a while, but gets irritating after so long. The twenty-minute final track is completely worthless, with what seems to be the continuation of the concert in the background and a lot of studio experimentation going on over it, including various noises and what sounds to be radio stations. One must ask, what the hell is the point of this? Could not the band have included a few more cuts from their highly acclaimed debut album to make this live album worth acquiring?

The idea of letting a band as wildly creative as The Mars Volta go completely all out in a live setting sounds frankly incredible on paper, seeing what sorts of surreal jamming can be done to build upon some of their pre-existing material. Unfortunately, what ends up happening on Scabdates is the band completely losing themselves in the process with these long stretches of meandering nonsense that seems to have a total lack of grounding. This is just an all around awful live album for the most part, not just in terms of the compositions themselves being all over the place, but even in terms of the performances themselves. Nobody here seems to be anywhere near in top form, with the instrumentation feeling very messy and Cedric's vocals making him sound like he's half asleep and just going through the motions. The songs themselves rarely benefit from their extended runtimes either, with the additions feeling extremely redundant for the vast majority of the time and not even really lining up with anything else they try to achieve, feeling entirely disconnected from the core that's being built off. Not entirely worthless since you've got parts 2 and 3 of Cicatriz which do in fact work really well, extending things in a more natural way and even including a bit of David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes, which was a very charming moment, but then it ends up devolving into 20 minutes of weird effects and field recordings and goes back to the negatives. I guess this just shows what happens when a band just gets a bit lost in their own madness and self-indulgence, because this ends up having next to none of the appeal that the band typically would have.

Best tracks: Concertina, Cicatriz part 2 and 3

Weakest tracks: Abrasions Mount the Timpani, Caviglia, Cicatriz part 4