Emily: The best concept albums are those that seamlessly flow from track to track, where the listener cannot distinguish where one chapter ends and another begins. The Mars Volta accomplish this on their debut album. Even though the lyrics are difficult to understand, the cohesiveness of the music reveals a story. The guitar and vocal sounds work together to create a dark mood, portraying emotions from anger to insanity to depression. Long tracks interspersed with short musical bursts give a unique pace to the album that further relates to the story. This album is complex both musically and thematically, which is a definitely major accomplishment for a debut.
Favorite Tracks: Eriatarka; This Apparatus Must be Unearthed; Inertiatic ESP
Zack: It's a very interesting title for a very interesting album. The "comatorium" corresponds to the fact that the album follows the story of a young man who overdoses on drugs and goes into a week long coma where he battles his own mind. When he wakes up, he commits suicide by jumping off a bridge into traffic. Isn't Wikipedia great, folks. I haven't listened to much prog rock in my day, so I can't compare this to anything else. As it stands, I liked it a lot. It was smooth with blasts of powerful and stressed guitar rifts. More importantly, this is the 100th album from the list that I've listened to! True, the other 38 don't really count until we publish the reviews, but still. I couldn't do it without myself. I'm a true inspiration to myself.
Favorite Tracks: This Apparatus Must be Unearthed; Eriatarka; Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)
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