Week 16 of 52 albums for a year
The Mars Volta - Lucro Sucio
Hi everyone. This week's going to be a long one.
This week I was really excited to check out The Mars Volta - Lucro Sucio; Los Del Vacio. Going by translate from DuckDuckGo,the album means Dirty Profit; The Eyes Of The Void.
If you will indulge me for a moment here, I need to say this at the start. I'm a big fan of The Mars Volta. They are one of my favourite bands since I first got Deloused In The Comatorium in 2004 and I've been lucky enough to see them play a handful of times when they toured in Australia with each of their 3 main drummers (Jon Theodore, Thomas Prigden, and Deantoni Parks). I've followed them and enjoyed their music across the different 'eras', from their initial drug induced psychedelic EP, their (in my eyes) magnum opus Francis The Mute, their frenetic Grammy award winning ouija board experiences, the sparse yet still intense album before their hiatus and their subsequent self titled album which was part revenge fantasy songs aimed at the rapist Danny Masterson and the Church of Scientology's attempts to ruin Cedric (the vocalist) and his families lives for taking him to court. Which is, of course, a pop album.*
I've dived into most of Omars solo albums (he's made 49 presently) and while some albums are hit and miss, there's some stuff I really love. I've been fortunate enough to see him play solo once too. I've also checked out many of the side projects from various members. Bosnian Rainbows, Anywhere, De Facto, One Day As A Lion, Antemasque, Zechs Marqouis, and of course, At The Drive In (which is where it all started).
In the pre-reddit era, I was on the Comatorium forum often. I would want Theory to please confirm, I listened to many live recordings through the marble shrine, I'd read people's theories on what the albums were about, and I remember this crazy photo thread that had hundreds of pages of replies. The fans are a tribe or a cult, and I'd say I'm a member to some extent.
Naturally I was stoked to hear there was another new album.
Lucro had been leaked online for months but I didn't listen to it until it was officially out and I could buy it. I followed along as people spoke about how Lucro was a return to their older style, how Cedric was aware of the leak and gave his copy of the new album to a Redditer who delivered him some food on tour, and how the band were playing the full album during their latest tour with the Deftones, which really divided fans (though it's not the first time they have done this, as the last time I saw them they did the same thing, playing Noctourniquet in full before it had been released).
So yeah, I'd heard of Lucro, but much like how I haven't seen the movie If This Ever Gets Weird, I was waiting for the official release of Lucro. And it came on April the 11th, so I jumped onto it for this week.
Overall, this is one of those albums that grew on me, although that's not uncommon for The Mars Volta in general. Comprising of 18 tracks, it initially looks like a lot of short songs. But a similar thing happened with Francis The Mute, with 5 songs creating Cassandra Gemini, a 32 minute track. To my ears, Lucro Sucio is an album with 8, maybe 9 songs, and lots of interludes. Unlike previous albums, the 'in between parts' have been split into separate short tracks, ranging from 29 seconds to 1-2 minutes.
As an example, Detras de la puerta dorada is a short drum breakdown. Is it a song or a transition? Bit of both. Once something like this would have been part of a larger song. For example Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore goes for 13 minutes. The first 4 minutes are bird noises and atmosphere building into the song. The last 3 minutes are a strange jam that rolls in and sounds very different to the song. If this was on Lucro, it would be split into 4 or 5 tracks.
Lucro Sucio is an album that's meant to be listened from start to finish. It's not a couple of songs you skip through, it's a piece of art that flows pretty seamlessly. It takes you on a journey, like all good music.
Starting with Fin, this is a reverb drenched intro that stands on it's own. I like it, it sounds gentle, but it's of course lyrically a bit fucked and dark. Is it meant to be played at the end or the start? That’s the kind of thing that the cult of Volta will be discussing on Reddit for the next couple of years no doubt, so I’ll move on.
When Reina Tormenta kicks in, the album goes up a notch. It's got the intensity I'm drawn to, and the song continues into Enlazan Las Tinieblas, with a Latin groove that I just love and this ugly break down of effects and noise.
Then there's an interlude or ambient soundscape that begins one of my favourite songs on the album, The Iron Rose. I love it, it's sparse but epic. I keep thinking that it's the same song as a later track Morgana, but it's not. It just feels similar.
Cue The Sun kicks in next with an ugly synth and guitar groan, with this really catchy bass holding it all together. The song continues into Alba Del Orate, and comes back later in the album with the tracks Morgana and (unsurprisingly) Cue The Sun (reprise). Mind you the end of Cue The Sun Reprise reminds me of some of the jazz albums I've been listening to this year like Holz-Stathis.
This whole section, from the Iron rose through to Morgana, reminds me of the live album Scabdates, which tries to capture what a Mars Volta gig is like. Namely, that a previously 10 minute song turns into a 40 minute song, going on tangents along the way before returning to where it started. This album is like that. There’s 30 minutes of music between these two tracks, and I found myself losing track of what song I was listening to as it flowed from one into the next, enjoying the process.
Voice in my Knives is fantastic. It's a very eerie concept, a voice is telling you to do what exactly with a knife? It's not a graphic song like the Six Feet Under album, but it leaves an impression. It's dark, creepy, and the music is beautiful. This song flows into Poseedora De Mi Sombra before you know it, but it's really one song.
Celaje starts off gently but continues the dark and creepy vibe. It's more laid back but it's still got an edge to it, with really distorted vocals. I've always loved the effects Cedric uses on his voice and it's done really well in this song.
Vocifero starts off with a brief soundscape before going into a relatively sparse song. The drums and vocals create a nice space and it's one of the songs where I can clearly hear the vocals. I found myself humming this a fair bit at work even though there's not a whole lot to the song. Mito De Los Trece Cielos is like listening to an outro of the same song.
Un disparo al vacio has a salsa feel to it, but the chorus reminds me of their song Noctourniquet, but a diet version. It's not as intense but it's still great. It has moments of intensity and I'm sure live it would be more full on, but as a whole it doesn't have the edge of their previous albums.
Maullidos has a stripped back sound to it. The vocals are heavily affected, but the other instruments sound pretty free of effects. I like it, I don't know if I love it but it's a pleasant enough song.
It’s here that we go back to Morgana, and what feels like the album coming home. It’s a really beautiful feeling that sweeps over me every time I listen to it.
And finally, Lucro Sucio. The longest track on the album, it starts off with a soundscape/musique concrete atmosphere that makes me imagine a random street somewhere in Latin America where people just pick up whatever instrument is around and start playing. There's hand drums, voices and laughter, a siren starts ringing and in kicks the song. With gritty vocal effects and a dark, twisted piano, this song creeps in slowly to a nice groove. I love this sound, it's really grown on me, and there's something incredibly powerful about the way the vocals come through repeating 'this I know'. And it ends with a jazz freakout, which is in line with my vibe of music this year.
So at the end of all my rambling, where do I stand on the album?
It feels like a natural progression from their self titled album and the album after that which was the same album but played acoustically. This feels like a blending of that style, there's more stripped back songs but not totally one sound or the other. Is it my favourite album of theirs? No. But I prefer listening through Lucro from start to finish than say Bedlam (although Bedlam has some of my favourite songs on it, I’ll skip a lot). This is another week where I feel like I'm not done with the album, but I need to move onto the next weeks album.
I'd give Lucro Sucio 4 out of 5 fingers. I know I'm biased. I've listened to this album at least 15 times (compared to some previous weeks where I've listened just the minimum 5 times) and I intend to keep listening to this one. It's got some really stand out songs, but maybe because of how the album has been split up it doesn't feel as dream like to me. I used to be forced to listen to 4 and a half minutes of noise before Francis the Mute Decoder kicked in, but I embraced that. It was the climb up the mountain that made the view worth it. Having a 6 minute song cut into two 3 minute songs, it means if I'm streaming the album there's sometimes a micro pause in between which breaks the illusion for me.
Thankfully, because I've bought it on Bandcamp I've been able to download it so I only get that when I'm streaming it. And perhaps it’s done on purpose, as this band are one of the few that have always rewarded their fans who buy their albums physically. For instance I’ve heard that the vinyl is a sky map of an actual place but I’m not sure if it’s been decoded where it actually is yet. So getting micro pauses when streaming might turn people off a bit who are used to having their music on tap, delivered in a streaming playlist.
I love that this is an album, and not a collection of songs from a playlist. I highly recommend it, there's some beautiful moments, and even if it is a less progressive/intense album, it's still got the dream like quality to it that captured me from the start with these guys.
*I know I skipped a couple albums in that list, but trust me, I’ve listened to them and I like them, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Otherwise I’d have gone on a tangent about Omar’s solo work, some of which is even better than a lot of The Mars Volta albums (I’m looking at you Old Money).
The year so far: