The first moments of "Deloused in the Comatorium" feel like stepping off of a spaceship into an entirely new world. On the album opener, "Son Et Lumiere", a fuzzy, pretty static haze clears into a digital symphony that sets the stage for the album to come. Lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala sings in muffled, phasing tones for some thirty seconds. Everything is temperate.
Suddenly, a dynamic drum fill cuts through the ambiance. In a combative call-and-response, the hazy noise fights and eventually surrenders to drummer Jon Theodore, who keeps interjecting with percussive riffs. The second track on the album, "Inertiatic ESP" enters in full swing.
Before we dive into the brawling, no-holds-barred headspace that The Mars Volta proffers on this album, we should talk a little about the context. This album was forged from the creative intersection of some wildly talented experimental musicians: in particular, this album is creatively controlled by three entities. First, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, the vocalist, controls the narrative and uses his voice as a meaningful part of the ensemble. Second, guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López's feverish guitar riffs and solos create an awry intensity that shapes the melodic core of the album. Last, but not least, drummer Jon Theodore builds a textured rhythmic sea of percussion that serves as a forceful foundation for the music. This album was released in 2003, but it feels way ahead of its time. In a societal soundscape that was trending towards rigid structure and uniformity, The Mars Volta firmly established their comfort zone miles away from anything else.
Back into the thick of the album, we truly kick things off with "Inertiatic ESP", which is probably one of the tamer tracks on the album all things considered. It features an infectious keyboard lick and an impassioned vocal delivery from Bixler-Zavala, taking advantage of relatively quiet verse sections so that the intensity of the refrain "Now I'm lost" hits with full force.
The pandemonium ensues with the next track, "Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)", which seems to be relatively predictable, with an established riff and refrain, but about two and a half minutes in, an utterly insane breakdown occurs. Reverbed guitars fill the track's space while Jon Theodore batters his toms in a seemingly random rhythm. It's crazy how this is all coordinated. It feels like an off-kilter avant-garde jam but all of the band members pick up the cues with no problem. And it isn't random. This is a carefully conjured world that has been replicated in concerts and thrives on the details. The track continues to change up and groove for the following five minutes; everytime you get a grasp on the material, it turns into an entirely new substance. You'd better get used to that.
After a quick break with "Tira Me a Las Aranas", a somber acoustic guitar interlude, we get four of the craziest rock songs I've ever heard. "Drunkship of Lanterns" knocks around with a nocturnal swagger imbued with a Latin feel, both in Theodore's holistic drum parts and López's scorching guitar patterns. "Eriatarka" switches up between slow, soft balladry and a screechy, thundering stadium chorus. "Cicatriz ESP" is a twelve-minute rumble of a track that explodes in bursts—notably, at about 4 minutes in, an extended 5-minute bridge takes place as the energy fizzles out and then resurrects stronger than before. After a couple of minutes of incredible musicianship from everyone in the ensemble, the track returns to its original motifs with less than a minute-and-a-half to spare, and it finishes with one of the most incredible explosions of sound that I've ever heard. "This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed" is an exercise in dissonance that begins abruptly and ends in an unsettling sweeping stupor.
"Televators" is the album's only full-on ballad, but it still strives for the unorthodox with Rodríguez-López's shrill feedback and Jon Theodore's textural feel with low-key hand percussion. The album's closer, "Take the Veil, Cerpin Taxt" is another one of the more tame tracks on the record. At least, it is for the first 2 minutes. Then everything absolutely goes haywire. Like literally, there is no discernable rhyme nor reason for a good 15 seconds, but everything just continues as if nothing ever happened. And then everything really gets wild, as the track evolves into an extended jam before hitting back with another refrain. And unlike the gradual world-building that "Son Et Lumiere" provided, "Take the Veil" ends suddenly and abruptly, as if an unfinished thought.
I haven't said anything yet about the narrative of the album, but as off-the-wall and mercurial as the project is, Bixler-Zavala has revealed that "De-Loused" is a concept album about a fictional character, Cerpin Taxt, who falls into a drug-induced coma. And with that revelation, everything really begins to fall into place. The eerie textures, the occasional horror-scape, the dissonant guitar, and most of all, the unpredictable atmosphere surrounding. When this album lurches into twenty seconds of heavily reverbed cacophony, it's not random, it's a lapse into something meaningful. And consider how "Son Et Lumiere" begins so measuredly and beautifully, and then is interrupted by a loud drum fill. The horror cuts through the high. And after the long nightmare of the album, we finish on a strange sudden note, and at this point, it's up to interpretation. Either Taxt wakes up in a sweat, or he succumbs to death just as suddenly.
I first heard this album when I was 12 years old or so. It floored me then, and it still continues to do so. I'd dare to say that the journey this album takes us on has been entirely unmatched in the 15 following years. Only the drug-addled fever trip of Danny Brown's "Atrocity Exhibition" from 2016 comes anywhere close to haunting me like this album has. It seems to be entirely singular and unabashedly revels in its abstrusity. It's carefully manufactured disarray, one that uses the element of surprise unlike anything else I've ever heard. If you're looking to challenge yourself or just appreciate pure, raw musicianship, I highly, highly recommend this album to you.
