Record Reviews Blog

If you watched the Eurovision Song Contest, you might remember the bunch of hairy heavy metal cellists whose performance during the interval was by far the best music of the evening. You might also remember it being totally ruined by that moron Wogan prattling inanely over the top of them.

Despite the almost complete absence of guitars, they’re just released one of the most metal albums of the year. All those piledriving riffs are actually distorted cellos; it’s only when one of them plays a solo that they actually sound like a cellos. This is not a traditional string quartet.

With the exception of a cover of Bowie’s “Helden”, all the songs are originals. The album is a mix of instrumentals and songs featuring various guest vocalists, including Rammstein’s Til Linderman, and Lacuna Coil’s Christina Scabbia.If anything, I find I prefer the instrumentals; the title track and “Burn” being particular standouts.

Now, where did I put my air cello?

This album took me a while to get into. On the first couple of spins, I didn’t find the third studio album by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Cedric Bixler-Zavala and crew to be quite as immediate as the first two. However, it grows with repeated listens. And eventually, it’s worth it.

It’s got the same mixture bizarre of alternative, prog-rock and traditional Mexican music, and again features the guitar playing of John Frusciante. It starts slowly; the creepily atmospheric opener “Vicarious Atonement” begins with two minutes of fluid but spooky blues guitar before the equally spectral vocals come it. The following lengthy “Tetragrammaton” is much closer to The Mars Volta’s sound on earlier albums with its bursts of staccato guitar riffs and machine gun drumming interspersed with gentler moments and effects-laden instrumental sections. And there are several more where that came from. But there are some new elements; “Vermicide” is probably the nearest The Mars Volta will ever get to a power ballad. And breaking new territory is the sparse “Asilos Magdelena”, sung in Spanish, with just a naked acoustic guitar for most of the song.

Overall, it might lack some of the frenetic energy of their debut, “Deloused in the Comatorium”, but there’s plenty enough to reward the listener once you get beneath the skin of the record.

PRR are one of the so-called “nu-prog” bands who have attracted the attention of some of the fashionable media. Quite why that same media focuses on completely new bands rather than those who have been ploughing an unfashionable furrow for years in an interesting question. Perhaps it’s because they’re signed to a major label and plugged into the Big Media hype machine. HippyDave has likened them to a prog version of The Darkness, and I suppose he’s got a point. Time will tell if they follow the same career trajectory, coming to earth with a crash after a poorly-received ‘difficult second album’.

I realise that so far I’ve said nothing about the actual music. In fact, it’s rather good. A lot of prog tropes are present and correct; 12 minute multi-part epics, soaring vocal harmonies, and song titles like “Apprentice of the Universe” and “The Bright Ambassadors of Morning”. The album opens with some very Meddle like slide guitar on the instrumental “Aeropause”, and the rest of the album continues to show a strong Pink Floyd influence. The vocal arrangements with twin lead vocalists Chloe Alper and John Courtney are particularly impressive throughout, and the whole thing is immaculately played and produced. The only thing missing is that there are no real solos. Sure, it’s a bit derivative in places, but tell me what isn’t nowadays. Whatever they might achieve in the future, I like this album a lot.