Mars Volta prog??!!

We had a good sound talk on MV last nite at the local......and some peeps in the group said that Mars Volta are prog......are they really?? Comments appreciated:hat:

 

I guess so. At least the closest thing to prog that contemporary popular music has to offer. Decent band, but I fucking hate their vocals.

 

>Yeah, I find something 'not right' with that band too....

 

Yeah they're progressive. I find that prog is more a trait of music than a type of music. Although there are some bands who set out to be "prog" who have kind of turned it into a genre in itself.

 

mars volta is noise.

 

And what's wrong with noise? Although nobody would ever call them noise rock, it's the closest description for what I hear when I listen to them. The jagged guitars and math rock drumming (mainly on the first 2 albums) makes for an almost impossible to pinpoint genre.

 

They're definitely not noise. They can sound kind of noisy and chaotic to the untrained ear but once you've been a musican for a long time their music sounds anything but chaotic and noisy; it's just very complex.

They're prog rock. There's no need for these subgenres.

 

oh i play the guitar........

 

That's great but that's not what I meant. I meant that to call The Mars Volta noise is ignorant and displays a lack of musical knowledge and understanding. It's possible to play guitar but know shit all about higher musicianship. And if you think that The Mars Volta are noise you obviously know shit all.

 

Yeah I can only see them sounding great in a concert hall with excellent acoustics and a very expensive sound system with great mixing. That's why orchestras need concert halls to play properly.

 

Hmmmmm, interesting, but when I hear the word progressive i can't but link it to the older bands like Rush, etc. ......I find Queensryche more prog than MV...but that's me

 

You're basically saying that a band can't be prog unless they're old.

Rush are Classic Prog Rock. Queensryche are Progressive Hard Rock. Mars Volta are Prog Rock with a bunch of influences like Latin music and Experimental music. Prog is a trait of music, not a type.

Think of it like this. Good Times Bad Times by Led Zeppelin is Classic Rock. It's a pretty plain sounding rock song and certainly not progressive. But on Dazed And Confused they're Progressive Classic Rock. As Dazed And Confused is progressive in nature. It's a trait of music.

 

I meant noise in a totally non-derogatory form. I love disharmonic sounding music, and yes I also know that they're all probably really into jazz. But 'lack of musical knowledge and understanding' definitely made me lol.

 

I don't hear it. I would never call them disharmonic. Perhaps they're not constantly tonal but they're very melodic and nowhere near true discordant music.

 

I've been listening to music since the dawn of age....I get what you're meaning.....I really like D&C by Zep and perhaps it makes me say that tune is a 'non-typical' Zep tune:cheers2:

 

Okay but there are different amounts of dissonance on their songs. If you go calling everything that isn't perfectly tonal noise, it's an extremely poor way to describe music. If Mars Volta is noise then what's minimalist black metal (which has nearly no tonality)? A greater degree of noise? And the way he described it it was as he was attempting to use it as a genre, which is even more inadequate.

 

bassist played in RACER X


:hat:

 

They aren't prog.

I don't think there's a category for Mars Voltra's music.

Unless "shit" is a musical genre.

 

Prog isn't a genre. It's a trait of music. In prog rock, rock is the genre. In prog metal, metal is the genre, etc.

 

That's a matter of opinion and anal masturbation.