The Mars Volta grab for May God curse you my heart back to the unoriginal motive of the acoustic remake, of all things, to prove that the material of their self-titled comeback from last year can still be a good album.
A calculation that, at least according to subjective perception, caused less skepticism in advance than the same conceptual conversion work: In extracts, The Mars Volta was quite convincing, had just as many great ideas as annoying potential left behind in frustratingly unfinished songs that were not thought through to the end.
The fact that Omar Rodríguez-López (guitar, flute, production, engineering) and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocals) with the current assistant cast of Marcel Rodríguez-López (keyboards, mellotron, piano, additional percussion, mixing), Eva Gardner (double bass), Daniel Diaz (percussion) and Leo Genovese (piano) the more-or-less unplugged perspective (a little bit in Octahedron-Manier) would want to change, could certainly arouse interest in disappointed, bruised fan hearts.
„May god damn you, sweetheart“: In fact, the result and overall feeling now seems more coherent and safer, the new versions, which are usually only a few seconds longer (which causes the total playing time to grow from 44:45 minutes to 47:22 minutes), convey something when viewed flatly more complete impression and can now end their abrupt ends in a more forgiving way.
The guise of Latin acoustic rock with folkloristic tendencies in salsa flamenco simply harmonizes better with the given strengths of the band than the overly modern forced pop: the guitar and restrained, but mostly by no means hasty percussion backgrounds, in their gentle looseness, let the Melodies are more engaging, the vocals use more direct space and melancholic intimacy, while the lyrics are allowed to show their depth. At the latest when Gardner’s wonderfully unexcited, masterful bass runs now ponder with an elegance that can only too easily be overlooked in the previous production, is May God curse you my heart more natural and organic than its nominal predecessor.
Which doesn’t mean that May God curse you my heart would now force the band’s flawless return to old genius. Because the album as a whole still has a few phases of meandering too many, cannot always implement its tensions, and sometimes runs the risk of falling prey to a certain background complacency.
Truth be told, there are quite a few versions of the songs on The Mars Volta have at least ignited equally well, a few even better – let’s just agree that both works turned out (very) well on their own.
With (slight to marked) advantages for May God curse you my heart however. Because how about Shore Story now invites a jazzy dreamy piano, the highlight Palm Full of Crux infinitely delicate acts, heaven offers even enchanting synth forebodings in the successfully staged arrangements or itself Collapsible Shoulders (at the end of a record that is still not ideally sequenced at the end) leans back into the new sound robe in order to harvest its fruits in an almost subversive way, then the access to the emotional level is simply more conclusive.
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