Something Awful vs The Mars Volta

There's a fantastic track-by-track review of a Mars Volta record, over at Something Awful

Here are some of my favorite bits:

At five minutes and ten seconds, the guitarist sounds like he’s repeatedly trying to play a guitar lick but screwing it up every time. If The Mars Volta intend to paint vivid pictures with their music, it’s working: if I close my eyes, I can see a teenager on a stool in Guitar Center trying to impress us with his avant-garde (i.e. out of key) riffs. Oh sweet, speaking of that: at five minutes and thirty seconds, we’re treated to some wicked fuckin’ tremolo dive-bombs! Rock that Squire Budget Strat, junior! Oh god, there’s like eight minutes to go before I’m even done with the first track. What the heck have I gotten myself into?

...and...

Uh oh, thirty seconds in, it sounds like the singer is getting a little agitated! He screamed a little bit and I think I know why: a chorus seems to have escaped his lips. The thing he feared most in this world, a conventional element of rock and roll, has unintentionally passed through him. Or maybe he’s just nonplussed because he seems to be channeling Geddy Lee. Fifty seconds in, he tells us that he’ll “never sleep alone.” Of course not. He’ll always have his insanely overblown musical ego by his side.

...and...

Okay, this song is even more boring than the song with the forest noises. It has a rudimentary tune, but it just sort of plods along with no direction like a senile outpatient with no family to pick him up and take him to the zoo, so he just sort of wanders around in his little hospital robe talking to whoever he happens to mistake for his dead son. Oh shit, I just made myself a little bit sad. Thanks a lot, Mars Volta, you dicks.

Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times, "yes".