Octahedron

Calling this an unplugged album is useful only in relation to what the group has produced in the past, but what the Mars Volta created on Octahedron will provide them with more range and opportunities in the future.

Guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala are the creative duo driving the band and once again deliver on a standing promise to blow any mind that is willing to stay open.

The panache of the singing, and the radiant complexity of the music--an achievement shared by Mr. Rodriguez Lopez and a handful of regular collaborators, including the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante--drive the album relentlessly forward. And it’s the subtle touches, no less than the sweeping ones, that leave an impression.

it’s an excellent change of pace for the band, and proves that they can indeed write spacey, esoteric mid-tempo songs instead of...well...spacey, esoteric breakneck songs.

Octahedron is most certainly not a wish for Top 40 stardom, but compared to past efforts by this collective, it’s probably the surest means of attracting a larger batch of casual listeners without completely rejecting the heady desires of Mars Volta obsessives.

This is, however, their most mellow, reflective and tempered release yet. [Sep 2009, p.95]

It shows that for the first time they really can do restraint, without compromising the overall impact of the instances where things are let rip.

These eight tracks--only one of which stretches past the eight-minute mark!--actually make up the Mars Volta's most consistently compelling slab since 2005's salsafied "Frances the Mute."

Octahedron lacks sparkle enough to raise it above previous creative highs--it’s a recommended affair, at times truly scintillating, but it doesn’t quite deliver to the extent where all caution can be tossed to the breeze.

This might be their ‘reflective’ effort, but it’s classic MV.

We already knew The Mars Volta could shred. Now we know they can slow the pace too and be equally as compelling. [Summer 2009, p.68]

Octahedron isn’t a representation of the best The Mars Volta are capable of, but it is a glimpse into the power they possess when they better harness their capabilities.

The lyrics remain as arcane as ever. Even if you don't totally love the band's new direction, you can bet there's a juicy pretentious concept waiting to be rooted out here.

In the end, Octahedron is a solid album that probably has two slow songs too many.

Bixler-Zavala is no Maxwell; he's more about sharp pain than voluptuous ache. By the end, he invokes Gordian knots alongside a fractallike Omar Rodriguez-Lopez guitar solo. Dude sounds like he's back home again.

Octahedron is something of a new beginning for the band. It's uneven, sometimes clumsy, and a bit incomplete-sounding. But in spite of itself, the Mars Volta sounds exciting again.

Is Octahedron the band's best album? No, but if you dig on MV's unrepentantly "big" and meandering suite-driven concept-album thing, you won't necessarily be disappointed.

Octahedron will appeal to elderly prog fans immune to attention deficit disorder, who have the patience to let its charm gradually unfold. [Aug 2009, p.111]

Octahedron bucks the band's trend for obfuscation, though; conventional song structures are very much in evidence, while its relatively trim 49-minute running time is on par with some of Mars Volta's more involved live jams. [Jul 2009, p.127]

As ever with The Mars Volta, there are enough flashes of brilliance to make up for the wearying material elsewhere. [Sep 2009, p.86]

This is a band that excels when its sing-alongs double as freak-outs; on Octahedron, they’ve largely ditched the chaos in lieu of an admirable, albeit unsatisfying, experiment in being quiet.

Octahedron is the sound of a band treading water.

Nothing on this album surprises me because anyone who has listened to this band regularly has become so steeped in pointless oddity that they have moved past surprise into the realm of mild annoyance.