Asif Khan Inc.

Octahedron – The Mars Volta

Rockers in the progressive genre, The Mars Volta, have always strived to deliver a potent combination of hard hitting music in extremities generally left unexplored by others. The entire gamut of their past work stretching from “Deloused in Comatorium” right up to “Bedlam in Goliath” testifies this. Yet, their latest album “Octahedron” tends to digress from the format they have cemented their musical prowess in. Not exactly to be termed as acoustic or unplugged, “Octahedron” features a somewhat clipped version of their sound, and in a region unexplored by the band earlier. The track titles still are as arcane sounding as ever, but the musical approach is fresher and likely to be appreciated by their fans. Though “Cotopaxi” and “Desperate Graves” contain those heavy riffs and pummeling drums which characterized their earlier works, the thickness of “Teflon” and wallowing vocals of “Since We’ve Been Wrong” make sure that this album has the potential to generate a slightly wider fan appeal. John Frusciante of RHCP also makes cameo appearances alongwith Lopez and Zavala, and provides some artistic surprises as well. We hope the change in direction works well for the guys.