Amputechture

It initially seems as if the moments of inspiration between self-indulgences are becoming scarcer. A bracing middle section resuces Amputechture. [Sep 2006, p.89]

It’s epic, mercurial, high-impact progressive rock that moves like a whirlwind.

All Amputechture does is test patience. [Oct 2006, p.200]

Sequenced into one long, continuous piece of music, most of Amputechture's tracks arrive at impressive jazz-fusion pit stops that are all too brief.

After an album's worth of tiring, spastic jazzy post-punk that smacks of musical masturbation, chances are you'll really miss At the Drive-In.

As over the top as all this can be, Amputechture has little of the thrash influence that's made modern prog so deadening, and the impenetrable lyrics... are easily overlooked. [Sep 2006, p.104]

It's on the second half where the Mars Volta catch fire. [21 Sep 2006, p.88]

You'd think these guys would've overheated by now, but they still love channeling chaos into one long river of song. [15 Sep 2006, p.77]

It's sad to see a band that touts itself as experimental sounding like a watered-down, unfocused version of its younger self.

All in all, Amputechture can be compared to watching a Hollywood car chase: impressive, but ultimately a heartless experience.

The punishing nature of the fusion furiosity is relieved by more soothing vocal sections. [12 Sep 2006]

The album is little different than their two previous atom bombs, De-Loused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute -- tense and anxious, continually pushing the boundaries of extreme production, with long periods of dynamics that rise ever higher, followed by an explosion of release (usually screaming hard rock with storms of atonal brass and horns).

Synths lap, strings weep soppingly, ham-fisted fingers tap, time signatures flash, and the amphetamine Beat poetry...is amphetamine Beat poetry.

Strikes a perfect balance. [Sep 2006, p.96]

Amputechture is the most complete, most listenable, and most accomplished album from the band to date.

Amputechture, with its obsessive exploration of religious fanaticism and the physical expression of devotional desire, is not an album wanting to be loved so much as feared and listened to with a sense of awe and taxed exasperation.

This record isn't for casual listening, so those checking out the Mars Volta for the first time should take it slow to prevent a sonic hangover.

It seems to prove a cardinal rule about art and ambition; if you paint in too many colors, you end up with mud brown. The Mars Volta could fill up whole galleries with canvases this color, and with Amputechture, have constructed another monochromatic monument to wild, uninhibited excess.

It's solid, but as with Radiohead's Kid A follow-up Amnesiac, it highlights its predecessor's brilliance rather than asserting its own.

There are bits of 'Amputechture' that sail perilously away from good honest prog into the realms of free jazz. [9 Sep 2006, p.37]

Amputechture is more a series of events than a complete experience. It's as though the Mars Volta is simply seeing what they can get away with.

Amputechture, though not near as spam-handed as Frances, is a bumpy ride, registering somewhere between the latter and debut full-length De-Loused in the Comatorium.

Amputechture shows a band honing their eruptive sound and bringing it into tight focus for the first time, routinely pushing their music to the wall without ever risking a breach.

With nary a tune in earshot, it sounds like an explosion in a guitar shop. [Oct 2006, p.124]

Maddeningly diffuse at best, and an engorged sonic clusterfuck at worst.

With each album, the band seems to grab for so much, reaching further and further into the musical abyss, and still and managinge to craft songs that boggle the mind and dazzle the ears. The only question is whether all this is just too academic. [#15]