The Mars Volta Reunites? for $479 18-LP Box Set

They broke up in 2013, but The Mars Volta just teased “La Realidad De Los Sueños” an 18-LP box set containing the bands entire studio discography. From Tremulent EP to the most epic record to shatter my ear drums, 2003’s De-Loused In The Comatorium. The box set is priced at $479 and I’m definitely telling you to get it. Buy it right the, son-of-a-now here. I’m not suggesting it. Making a strong case for it. I’m demanding you go and buy it, get yourself a record player, plug it in a shred your ears to seething pro-rock with Latin flavor. 

Here’s the thing. There’s only 5,000 copies left which means by the time this article is published it’s probably sold out because I’m probably going to buy them all. The reason I’m so passionate about this is because on May 12th, 2004 I was at the Wiltern in LA for one of the first shows of the Mars Volta promoting De-Loused In The Comatorium. I recall them playing the entirety of the album (which is just a few seconds over an hours length) and a few bops off of the EP. The magic is that the concert was nearly three hours long. 

This was a life-changing experience. I was just getting into the college vibe and trying to figure my whole personal deal out when Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López kicked me in the face with art. The scene in 2004 was prime for bell bottoms and retro-70s psychedelic vibes, but we weren’t ready for the Volta… much less from another planet. The Mars planet.  Throughout the entire concert, songs that were 3-5 minutes went on for at least 15. 

The piece de resistance was “Cicatriz Esp,” these majestically haired forces of nature wailed, rocked, danced, and screamed through the song for 50+ minutes. It wasn’t just jamming and breaking it down a-la Grateful Dead… it was spontaneous, chaotic, maddening and euphoric. I’d want to be able to identify the peak moment of the song, but I honestly can’t. From Cedric losing his mind and salsa/James Brown shuffling, Omar shredding incomprehensible notes and runs on hi guitar, or you know what, maybe the time when the giant glowing rat used as a backdrop becomes a giant glowing spider… actually it was probably the moment the bassist took a stab at a solo (no small feat in the company of one of the best Jazz drummers in the game, and Omar and Cedric), but this dude did the sickest bass solo that culminated in his bass sounding like a chainsaw. 

Yo. A chainsaw. 

Chainsaw, glowing spider, rat, and an infusion of Latin music influence and the complicated salsa, samba kind of Latin music… that spelled out for me what I can only describe as magic. That moment or moments of The Mars Volta at the Wiltern in 2004 was so impactful I feel like it’s classified in my bank of identity somewhere between an emotion and a memory. It’s it’s own permanent thing; a feeling, a moment, a vibe and time I can never reproduce or recreate, but something that I will carry as a part of my identity until the moment I die. 

Because of this, that obscene ask, that insane price-tag on a “prog-rock” bands ambitious LP box-set for me seems both fair and essential. I don’t know when or how moments like my concert experience happen in a persons life… but I could use a handful more. Thank you art and thank you Omar and Cedric you magnificent sorcerers.