Amputechture

You can hardly accuse the Mars Volta of being unambitious. With Amputechture their latest outlandish concept album, they've outdone themselves in the adventurous hard rock category since quite frankly, there's no one else to compare them to, nor is there any other group working this same territory in rock today.

Think of prog rock, '70s vintage, and you might get some idea of where the Mars Volta is going with things. But add up-to-the-minute technique and the random, pastiche nature of 21st Century art, as well as Latino culture to the mix and you've got something totally original.

Following their 2005 conceptual album, Frances the Mute, (based on the found diary of a man in search of his birth parents), Amputechture was in part inspired by the immigrant marches in Los Angeles and follows its own thematic thread, albeit a loose one comprised of eight interlocking stories.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala are the partnership that is the band, with Omar on music and Cedric on lyrics. The pair originally came out of El Paso Texas and the popular indie group, At the Drive In, but they broke away from both in the early '00s to form their own concern. They are accompanied by the Mars Volta Group: a collective of musicians that includes trippy Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante (on wailing guitar parts throughout).

"Vicarious Atonement" is a sprawling, epic introduction to eight tracks of weirdness. "Tetragrammaton" is an amazing 16-minute sonic escapade. Next to those two, "Vermicide," (does it mean worm killer?) sounds like a positively, traditional rock tune, the likes of Rush. Frusciante really gets a chance to stretch and space-out on "Meccamputechture," the de facto title track. "Asilos Magdalena" has some beautiful Spanish acoustic guitar and a gentle Spanish language lyric. Conversely, "Viscera Eyes" is half Spanish/half English but is as hard hitting as a sledgehammer. The urgent "Day of the Baphomets" uses Latin rhythms and some free jazz saxophone in its otherwise punky arrangement.

"El Ciervo Vulnerado" ends the journey on a cryptic and subdued note. It's safe to say you can expect the unexpected from the Mars Volta -- everything from made-up words to loose concepts fit into their futuristic hard rock bag. Hey, does anyone know what Amputechture means?