Mastodon: The Hunter (Warner Bros. / Reprise)

Mastodon: "Curl of the Burl"

Since forming in 1999, Mastodon has grown from cult sensation to preeminent poster-child of metal’s next generation. Along the way, its crushing, complex brand of melodic sludge has absorbed elements of thrash, prog, and Southern rock, all complemented by earthen mythology, literary ambition, and serious chops.

On The Hunter, an album that breaks the band's concept-album streak, vocal melodies are at an all-time high, imbuing tracks such as "Curl of the Burl," "All the Heavy Lifting," and "Creature Lives" with genuine pop catchy-ness that, at times, approaches the intonations of Alice in Chains. But grizzly screams and up-tempo sludge riffs have not gone the way of the band's namesake; "Blasteroid" and "Black Tongue" have plenty of head-bashing fury.

A few spacey and horror-esque elements, musically and lyrically, give the album an interesting wrinkle here and there, such as on "Stargasm" and "Creature Lives," the latter of which uses pitch-shifting synths to set an alien mood. "The Sparrow" then closes the album with touches of lap-steel guitar, setting the tone for some of the airiest Mastodon vocals yet.

In all, The Hunter is a fun, riff-filled album, but it's destined to alienate more Mastodon "purists." The bottom line, however, is that the band continues to crank out killer riffs and turn on a new generation to metal — even if it has a softer edge.

Boom Bip: Zig Zaj (Lex)

Boom Bip: "All Hands"

Ever since his loop-based beginnings, Bryan Charles Hollan — known better as experimental hip-hop artist Boom Bip — has been on the search for his optimal live-band incarnation. With his latest, Zig Zaj, he seems to have found it.

In 2002, Seed to Sun demonstrated Hollan's ability to make compelling organic and instrumental hip hop. On his recordings since that time, nearly everything has been performed by hand, and the results have been admirable — but nothing has clicked quite like this.

Now Hollan is armed with a permanent live band, consisting of Josh Klinghoffer (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Eric Gardner (Gnarls Barkley, Charlotte Gainsbourg), and Josiah Steinbrick. Their chemistry is immediately evident on Zig Zaj, which also sports standout guest spots from Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand (for one very Depeche Mode track), Money Mark, Luke Steele (Empire of the Sun), Cate Le Bon, and Mikey Noyce (Bon Iver).

Partly because of the guests, the new material takes a poppier and more rock-driven direction. But there's still plenty of the old Bip underneath, as synths and electronics commingle with the bass grooves and delicate acoustic riffs. It's a catchy, beautiful, and well-balanced blend, perfect for first-time Bip listeners. Pick this up now.

Welder: Florescence (Ancestor)

Welder: "Run"

Brendan Angelides is a San Francisco-based electronic producer best known as Eskmo, an IDM/electronica project that has come to focus more on atmospherics and on writing songs than on its early roots of making dance tracks. He has found a like-minded collaborator in the incomparable Amon Tobin, with whom he operated as Eskamon for a 2010 single, but for his latest release, Angelides has retraced his roots as Welder for another self-released gem.

Welder began as one of Angelides' first and most introspective projects. Living alone in a lakeside house in Connecticut for two years, he created soft, internal music, a more “chilled” version of electronica, under the alias . But it wasn’t only the remote locale that inspired the quiet sounds, as Angelides pored over documents and papers about the dark underside of American society and government and conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11.

Florescence is almost a rebirth for Welder. The IDM elements remain, but the music is more organic than ever. Gone are the bass-heavy dubstep rumblings of his self-titled Eskmo release, and the worldly elements of the earlier Welder material have been replaced by interwoven grooves, stirring melodies, and diverse timbres.

The emphasis here is on Angelides' musicianship, including his talents on the piano and bass. From the start, Florescence is highly active, intertwining feisty and bubbly melodies of faux cello and glockenspiel. Piano, guitars, synths, and strings surround those other elements, and whether they're real or library samples, they create a sound that's simultaneously lifelike and dreamy.

- Text by Marla Seidell and Scott Morrow. Read the feature story on Eskmo here.

Zechs Marquise: Getting Paid (Sargent House / Rodriguez Lopez Productions)

Zechs Marquise: "Static Lovers"

El Paso-based psych-prog five-piece Zechs Marquise is three-fifths Rodriguez Lopez — brothers Marcel, Rikardo, and Marfred — a surname that gained music-industry notoriety from Omar, the prolific Mars Volta guitarist (and head of Zechs Marquise's label). Together, the siblings have followed in the progressive footsteps of their older brother, but Zechs Marquise has blazed its own trail over its eight years as a band.

Its official debut album, the 2009 effort Our Delicate Stranded Nightmare, was a much more experimental and atmospheric work, patching together songs with eerie intros, funky keys, and jazz-tinged ambience. Getting Paid, however, fully focuses on the groove. Each of the album's nine tracks moves at its own pace, venturing into an alternate sonic universe at a moment's notice. Abrupt tempo shifts, an inexhaustible junk drawer of textures, and a healthy obsession with '70s prog fusion culminate in a truly shape-shifting record, albeit one that consistently rocks. Zechs Marquise knows when to give into its sweaty, twisted vision-quest dalliances and when to let a groove ride.

- Text by Kyle Gilkeson.

Evidence: Cats & Dogs (Rhymesayers)

Evidence: "You"

Los Angeles MC Michael Perretta (better known as Evidence) is one third of the hip-hop trio Dilated Peoples. Over the past four years, with Dilated on hiatus, Evidence has focused on his solo career, and Cats & Dogs marks his move to Rhymesayers Entertainment.

Here Perretta delivers a crisp flow that is complemented by guest vocalists such as Slug (Atmosphere), Aesop Rock, Raekwon, and Aloe Blacc. With samples anchored in soul and pop, the album lays a pliable backdrop for topics that range from the recession to distorted concepts of love. Skits between tracks bear an early-’90s influence, and with shout-outs to KRS-One and De La Soul, it’s clear that the time period remains a strong influence on Cats & Dogs.

- Text by Portia Medina.

Plaid: Scintilli (Warp)

Plaid: "35 Summers"

Despite an eight-year layoff between "official" full-lengths, London electronic/film-scoring duo Plaid certainly has not lost its touch. Initially announcing the news of their sixth studio album back in 2008 and taking as long as an entire day to produce a single beat, Andrew Turner and Ed Handley have used their tedious perfectionism to make Scintilli worth the wait.

Plaid's first non-film-related release since 2003, Scintilli is a dreamy, hyper-melodic mélange from the get-go, as ethereal female vocals glide over the first track’s delicate chimes and synths. Each of the album’s 13 tracks, however, adds an entirely new rhythmical sequence and mood to the mix. With a vast array of layered sound effects, Scintilli has a captivating range. Its infectious loops and spliced styles – hazy pop, acid house, dubstep, glitch – fade in and out in a confused muddle. Yet the mingling of these divergent electronic sounds creates a pleasant disconnect, perfect for eclectic IDM fans.

- Text by Lauren Zens.

Honorable Mentions

Apparat: The Devil’s Walk (Mute)

Bonnie "Prince" Billy / Phantom Family Halo: Mindeater (Knitting Factory)

Brutal Truth: End Time (Relapse)

Extreme Noise Terror: Holocaust In My Head (Candlelight)

Bill Frisell: All We Are Saying (Savoy Jazz)

Itsnotyouitsme: Everybody’s Pain is Magnificent (New Amsterdam)

The Janks: Hands of Time (Sprouted Records)

Junius / Rosetta: Split (Translation Loss)

Rudresh Mahanthappa: Samdhi (ACT Music & Vision)

Jono McCleery: There Is (Counter)

Rwake: Rest (Relapse)

Matt Stevens: Relic

Tom Vek: Leisure Seizure (Downtown / CO-OP USA / Island)

Craig Wedren: Wand (Nerveland)

Wilco: The Whole Love (dBpm Records)

yMusic: Beautiful Mechanical (New Amsterdam)

Zechs Marquise: "Static Lovers"

El Paso-based psych-prog five-piece Zechs Marquise is set to release its sophomore album, Getting Paid, on September 27. The band is three-fifths Rodriguez Lopez — brothers Marcel, Rikardo, and Marfred — a surname that gained music-industry clout from Omar, the prolific Mars Volta guitarist (and head of Zechs Marquise's label).

We have an exclusive track from Getting Paid available for your listening enjoyment. "Static Lovers" starts off with eerie ambience, all creaks and groans and echoing screeches, before a drumroll and ripping wah-wah riff kick in. Expanding on the sound established on its 2009 debut, Our Delicate Stranded Nightmare, Zechs' style is meandering throwback psychedelia with a prog-fusion bent.

In the teaser video below, the band opens up a package filled with its own vinyl. They're all, "Whoa," "sick," and "dope." Have a listen, have a look, and see what all the excitement's about.

Grand Pianoramax: Smooth Danger (ObliqSound, 5/3/11)

Grand Pianoramax: "Roulette" (radio edit)

Morrow: Conceived as something of a live piano-and-drums experiment, Grand Pianoramax is the principal project of pianist Leo Tardin.  Once "a New Yorker from Switzerland" and now "a Berliner from America," Tardin uses a small arsenal of instruments — grand piano, Fender Rhodes, K-Station, harmonium, Phillichorda — to achieve a diversity of sounds for his duo's spacey, funky, classically infused music.

Smooth Danger is the duo's third and newest album; released overseas last fall, it sees a US release in a few months.  Though it doesn't depart much from its predecessors, it cuts back a bit on guest vocalists, allowing the duo's music to better stand on its own.  And it deserves to, thanks to its combination of killer melodies, synthesized grooves, and classical piano that overlay tight, rapid rock and boom-bap beats from new drummer Dominik Burkhalter.  (The former drummers, by the way, were no slouches: Deantoni Parks [The Mars Volta, Meshell Ndegeocello] and Adam Deitch [Talib Kweli, John Scofield].)

Hajduch: There are moments, such as on "The Queen," when the spastic nature of the instrumentation threatens to overwhelm the songcraft.  But more often than not, the tics and hiccups of the music stay out of the way.  Most tracks stick to a simple "bass groove + drum workout" formula that's hard to beat.  The vocal cuts are the weakest; they just don't seem necessary, and Black Cracker and the eternally overrated Mike Ladd don't really overwhelm with personality (though Ladd's spoken-word piece is infinitely better than either of Black Cracker's).

Some of the instrumentals sit on the outer-wonky end of the dubstep spectrum (think Slugabed), with the type of pitch/stutter tricks ascribed to fidget house.  Others, like "Clairvoyance," wouldn't sound completely out of place on a prog album (think Yes' "Five Per Cent For Nothing") once the drums get going.  There's little on this album not to like; if anything, the vocal tracks could be jettisoned.

Morrow: For the most part, I agree about the vocal tracks, but to be fair, I haven't heard much of Grand Pianoramax's older guest spots, which include Mr. Lif (possibly my favorite rapper).  And I like the Ladd track, but I worry that the first track with Black Cracker ("Sleepwalk") might give listeners the wrong idea about the rest of the album.

As for the rest of the music, there also are moments of quasi-8-bit audio, such as the beginning to "Roulette" that sounds like the old Atari game Combat, and there are even tinges of cinematic drama, like the low, pounding piano notes of "Domestic Bliss," a track that nicely fits the echoing words of Ladd.  Karsh Kale also provides a few great tabla spots.

In all, I think that we were both pleasantly surprised by this, even if we'd change a few things.

[Have you pledged yet?  Don't forget to visit the Kickstarter page for Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music, our next book that profiles independent musicians and artists who explore color in unorthodox ways.]

Free Moral Agents: Control This (Chocolate Industries, 10/12/2010)

Free Moral Agents: "North Is Red"

Mars Volta fans know Isaiah “Ikey” Owens as a master keyboardist, also lending his talents to the related experimental dub/reggae side project De Facto. But Owens’ own one-time side project, Free Moral Agents, has transformed into a full-time band with a second studio release, Control This.  Though his musical associations are enough to give him reputable standing as a versatile and adaptable session player, Free Moral Agents is far from sounding like a complex math-rock outfit.

The band's music is, however, complex in its own way.  Control This is an omnivorous kind of record — as diverse as it is visionary — and is comfortable in taking on different musical personas at once.  Over a combination of ambient pop and trip hop, crunchy guitar riffs and avant-garde fusion motifs construct a critical foreground, and the esoteric vocals of Mendee Ichikawa make for a strong and fitting melodic element.

Under the Free Moral Agents moniker, Owens released his 2004 solo debut, Everybody’s Favorite Weapon, on fellow Mars Volta bandmate Omar Rodriguez Lopez’s label, Gold Standard Laboratories.  Soon after the solo affair saw the additions of Dennis Owens on bass, Ryan Reiff on drums, Reid Kinnet on the Fender Rhodes, Jesse Carzello on guitar, and Ichikawa on vocals.  Owens is responsible for the band’s overall sound, not only playing keyboard but taking lead on production.

Regarding that production, Owens is consistent in giving tracks enough ambient space for Ichikawa’s breathy vocals to effectively clash with the rest of the band’s dynamics.   The contrast is heard on pieces like “Sytole,” with its haunting delayed vocals, echoing into a funky break-beat and bass-driven set, finally breaking down into an epic fusion of visceral guitar riffs and swelling trumpet lines.

“Avarand,” another track that draws distinct differences together, takes a number of stylistic twists in a far-reaching arrangement that works in the overall scheme of the album.  The heavy pierce from the guitar is the closest on the album to resemble that of The Mars Volta. But like many of the other instruments, it drops in and out, giving the song a blistering nod that comes off meditative rather than spontaneous.

Later on the record, the band brings its experimental flourishes to Sonic Youth’s “Little Trouble Girl,” a cover that not only shows the true extent of its wide-ranging sound but the striking similarities between Ichikawa’s voice to both Kim Gordon and Kim Deal.

But as early as the album’s opening track “North Is Red,” Free Moral Agents establishes a musical energy that rides a fine line between inside and outside the box.  There’s a developed maturity within the exotic percussion and groovy horn lines that achieve an exciting urgency, even though the vocals stay cool and collected.  By mid-song, everything breaks down, and there begins an assaulting free-jazz alto-sax solo that lasts for the remainder.

In its dissonance, the track becomes definitive in setting the “anything goes” attitude that very much describes the rest of the album.  But to think that such an outlook makes for a record without any unifying elements would be a mistake.   Control This is not experimental for the sake of being experimental.  Owens and co. have found a dark niche where the music sounds inherently natural, not forced.   The music here is an eclectic collection of tastefully clashing sounds from an outfit that thrives on deconstructing genres to forge brand-new ones.

Sonny Kay: DMTMZM...X?

Their joint exhibition, Parallel Universes, opens November 20 at Hold Up art gallery in Los Angeles and runs there through December 5.
 

Jeff Jordan: Symbiotic Village

After a performance at the Metamorphose Festival in Japan on Sept 4, Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group will play a pair of shows in NY and Chicago with Le Butcherettes.

OMAR RODRIGUEZ LOPEZ GROUP / LE BUTCHERETTES
Sept 17 – New York, NY @ Highline Ballroom
Sept 18 – Chicago, IL @ Congress Theater

Lead singer/bassist Johnny Bell shyly greets me at the bar, and we head downstairs, away from the soundcheck, in order to be heard. Sitting on a ratty couch littered with cigarette burns, I’m surrounded by the Antlers collective: guitarist Andrew King, organist Victor Rodriguez, drummer Kevin Stuart, percussionist Damian Edwards, and guitarist Errol Davis.

Half the guys are snoozing, and the others are waiting anxiously for food, which has been massively delayed. Water drips from the ceiling, and the couch is soaking wet in patches. Johnny plunks down next to me and wipes a hand over his face, his mane of brown hair a tangled mess.

I suddenly wonder how old these guys are, as everyone barely looks a day over 20. Thinking about the Antlers’ massive European tour, it occurs to me that I would make a lousy rock star. As the ceiling water drips on my notebook, smearing the ink of my questions, I realize that after only a few minutes of being in that basement, I want to go home. For the Crystal Antlers, there is no turning back.

“[If] you think this is bad, you should have seen the storm we caught in Madison last night,” Bell tells me in his soft-spoken cadence. “For some reason, I started thinking about when I did Sea Scouts a few years back. I was 15, and I worked on this old Coast Guard boat from the 1920s, and we did trips to all the different Channel Islands, delivering cargo.”

Bell pauses and someone lights up a cigarette.  “Was it like Deadliest Catch?” I ask. Everyone in the room laughs when I bring up the fishing documentary series.

“There were a lot of moments that felt like that, and it could get pretty scary,” Bell says. “I remember driving the boat at 4 a.m., after being up all night, and all the captains and everybody were asleep. The only tape we had on deck was Van Morrison’s Moondance, and I remember being up there in the captain’s chair, just rocking back and forth to Van Morrison.

"It was pretty surreal. I think about that a lot because I haven’t done anything like that in a really long time and I kind of miss it, even though being on tour is our life now.”

Following its self-released, eponymous EP in 2008, produced by The Mars Volta’s keyboardist Ikey Owens, the Crystal Antlers made quite a buzz in a short amount of time. The band's sound, a unique mix of psych fuzz and layered chaos, won it a spot on the Carson Daly Show.

“It was the first time in a long time that I almost just stopped playing because I got nervous,” guitarist King tells me with a laugh. “I took a minute and thought, ‘Wow, this is some pretty intense stage fright right now!’ I hadn’t felt that way since the junior-high-school talent show!”

The band quickly caught the attention of seminal indie label Touch and Go Records, making the Antlers the last band to be signed before the label announced an indefinite hiatus from distribution.

It’s hard to pin down the Antlers’ sound, a frantic hodgepodge of influences containing the idiosyncratic mania of The Mars Volta while not really sounding anything like it. The organ lends the sound a touch of bluesy psychedelia, yet the vibe is distinctively punk. When asked to describe the sound of the new record, Tentacles, Bell bristles. “I just don’t ever try and describe our sound,” Bell says. “I just ask people, ‘What do you think?’ Because I don’t really know what our sound is like.”

Tentacles was recorded at lightning speed. “We laid down the tracks and mixed the album in about a month,” Bell says. “We do work at a hectic pace. Originally, the idea was to go on tour a month before, and then go into the studio and hammer it out quickly but be really focused on it.

"It turned out to be a lot more intense than I thought it would be. Not all of the parts were finished beforehand, and it was just way more work than I expected. We hardly slept at all, especially in the last few days. I think Errol and I were only asleep for a few hours. We’d sleep on the floor, in the booth, with the engineer. We didn’t leave the studio for more than 15 minutes at a time for the entire week.”

For such a dense record, it’s amazing that the band was able to combine the challenging musical arrangements with aggravated intensity in such a limited time frame.

Percussionist and multi-instrumentalist Martin Dosh spent much of the past decade establishing himself as a skilled designer of electro-infused, loop-laden ambience and melody.

Over that time, his arrangements have become more complex, with instrumentation that has gotten progressively more diverse, often thanks to high-profile guests such as Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Andrew Bird, Odd Nosdam, and Fog.

For a good portion of his latest effort, variegated sounds create thoroughly layered material atop jumping drum kits and looped beats alike. Harpsichord, slide guitar, piano, and saxophone complement the usual armaments of Fender Rhodes, marimba, and samples, as tracks such as "Subtractions," "Number 41," and "Call the Kettle" (as well as the album's distorted conclusion) present new sides of Dosh. Tommy eventually settles into the down-tempo electro-acoustic tunes of yore, but never is the album dull or repetitive.

Dosh: "Subtractions"
Dosh: \"Subtractions\"

The Nels Cline Singers: Initiate (Cryptogramophone)

Gifted guitarist Nels Cline may be best recognized as "that really tall guy in Wilco," but his accomplished career spans decades as well as ravines of style. Free jazz, avant-rock, country, experimental — there aren't many modern guitar-heavy styles that Cline hasn't touched.

For his "full-time" group, The Nels Cline Singers (a purposeful misnomer), Cline commonly has traversed improvised terrain, but recent albums have presented a beauteous (and often acoustic) compositional side.

Initiate, a two-disc release that includes a live album, further angles The Singers towards accessibility. But fans of Cline's off-the-cuff abilities and technical prowess won't be disappointed, as the album strikes a perfect balance for the group, alternating between progressive jams, effect-laden tranquility, and alien "out-ness."

A squiggly, ambient, looping intro leads into a track of circular grooves that keep it steady for Cline's noodling solos and riotous effects. Other atmospheric pieces utilize Cline's playing in a lounge or jazz style, or simply use him as a swelling accompaniment to the endowed bass lines of Devin Hoff and percussive dynamics of Scott Amendola. All told, Initiate might be the trio's best and most symmetrical release to date.

The Nels Cline Singers: "Floored"
The Nels Cline Singers: \"Floored\"

Omar Rodriguez Lopez: Solar Gambling (Rodriguez Lopez Productions)

Released digitally late last year, the 13th solo album by The Mars Volta's mastermind sees a physical release this Saturday for Record Store Day. Ostensibly, Solar Gambling is a supplement to last year's Xenophanes, a masterful and approachable vocal-intensive album that featured the deft piano work of sibling Marcel Rodriguez Lopez.

This collection contains a familiar brand of progressive psych jams, and fans of Omar's monstrous output aren't likely to be surprised. However, whereas Xenophanes was a striking vocal "debut" by Omar, Solar Gambling fully features vocalist Ximena Sariñara, who supplied backups on the predecessor.

It's hard to believe that one man can produce so much quality music like clockwork, and Solar Gambling attains a perfect counterbalance — alluring vocals and rock grooves vs. polyrhythmic overdubs and exotic effects. Be sure to stream the whole album while you can.

Omar Rodriguez Lopez: "Un Buitre Amable Me Pico"
Omar Rodriguez Lopez: \"Un Buitre Amable Me Pico\"

Child Abuse: Cut and Run (Lovepump United)

A band as consistent in its own sound shouldn't be as indescribable as Child Abuse, which might be considered something to the effect of "death math punk." But that description, like many, is insufficient.

On top of punishing, Meshuggah-style beats, the trio heaps beastly fuzz bass, wailing keyboard noise, growls, and vocal weirdness. The most apt contemporary comparison might be Italy's Zu (also a three-piece) or Lightning Bolt (only a duo!), but these counterparts are actually easier to digest and easier for grooving along.

Cut and Run will strike many as abrasive and difficult, but for fans of complexity and noise, it will be another great disc from 2010.

Child Abuse: "Bebe"
Child Abuse: \"Bebe\"

Honorable Mentions

An Autumn For Crippled Children: Lost (ATMF)

Clutchy Hopkins: The Story Teller (Ubiquity)

Chris Burton Jácome: Levanto

Kaki King: Junior (Velour)

Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers: Agridustrial (Colonel Knowledge)

Lowness: Undertow (Ant-Zen)

Stanton Moore: Groove Alchemy (Concord)

Rafter: Animal Feelings (Asthmatic Kitty)

Tortoise

Issuing its first full-length album of new material in five years, the incomparable instrumental quintet known as Tortoise makes a marked shift from its previous two albums.

Those predecessors, Standards and It's All Around You, ushered in a new era of melodic beauty that integrated synthesizers, vibraphones/marimbas, samples, and jazz guitarist Jeff Parker into the band's mixture of indie rock, post-rock, and dub.

Beacons of Ancestorship packs up the mallets to emphasize the synths, but the album's sonic palette is the most diverse of any Tortoise release.  Metamorphosing grooves lead to moments of exotic strings, fuzz bass, noodling guitar hammer-ons, and snare-heavy cadences.  Even a touch of spaghetti Western directs "The Fall of Seven Diamonds Plus One."

It may take a few listens, but Tortoise fans are sure to love this one.

Serengeti & Polyphonic: Terradactyl (Anticon)

Creative multi-genre rapper Serengeti has long held esteem in Chicago indie hip-hop community, where he has frequently crossed streams with producer Polyphonic.

On Terradactyl, the duo's second album and first for Anticon, unorthodox rhymes land alongside bass synth, acoustic guitar, cello, digitized bleeps, and restrained IDM sounds.  Special guests Adam "Doseone" Drucker, Buck 65, and Renee-Louise Carafice make appreciated vocal cameos, but 'Geti has skills that need no augmentation.

The duo's live instruments and unusual sound may alienate closed-minded listeners.  Nevertheless, with the national influence and distribution of Anticon, Terradactyl should announce Serengeti & Polyphonic as an inspirational new voice in indie rap.

The Mars Volta: Octahedron (Warner Bros.)

Maintaining his rabid album-a-year pace (in addition to his countless other projects), tireless guitarist Omar Rodriguez Lopez puts another Mars Volta disc under his belt with this move to Warner.

In contrast to last year's Bedlam in Goliath, Octahedron is a rather subdued affair, offering poppier passages, verse-chorus-verse balladry, and softer sounds from singer Cedric Bixler Zavala.  The album has a decidedly less progressive feel, but alien-esque effects and nimble guitar work are still present.  Fans that have been waiting for a more-accessible Mars Volta disc should enjoy Octahedron.