Prog-rock heroes The Mars Volta called it a day back in 2013, but over the past few years frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala has dropped hints about the possibility of a reunion.
Earlier today, the band broke their eight-year silence with a cryptic video trainer. The seven-second video interpolates lyrics from their 2002 track ‘Concertina’, with aesthetic cues from the album artwork of their 2003 debut, De-Loused in the Comatorium.
COMING SOON #THEMARSVOLTA pic.twitter.com/khB3aosupb
— Clouds Hill (@cloudshillmusic) March 4, 2021
The trailer follows news of Clouds Hill Notes’ recent acquisition of Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López’s back-catalogue and publishing rights. The acquisition including a partnership with Wise Music Group on publishing for The Mars Volta.
“It’s about the right time to announce the acquisition of the RLP catalogue and The Mars Volta publishing now,” CEO and founder of the Clouds Hill Group Johann Scheerer shared in a statement.
“After being Omar Rodríguez-López’s friend and business partner for such a long time, I am honoured and proud that he decided to also entrust me with this catalogue. Our HQ in Hamburg is now responsible to push this unique catalogue back into everyone’s minds.”
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The statement seemingly implies that Cloud Hill Notes’ might be plotting a Mars Volta reissue campaign. Or it may mean new music is on the horizon. A seven-second video is not much to go off but we’re desperately scrambling for answers.
In a series of since-deleted tweets from 2019, Cedric Bixler-Zavala revealed that he and Omar Rodríguez-López had been chipping away at new music.
“What it’s NOT going to be is your ‘fav member lineup’ playing their ‘classic records’ in full etc. Maybe we’ll play old shit, who knows how we feel,” he wrote.
“Just remember our past campaigns never relied on playing requests or going fully backwards …it’s new shit, new people, left turns, tangent inconsistencies, mazapan dreams and churro wishes.”
He continued, “I will say this though, when ORL played me a grip of new shit I fucking cried. Like Claire Daines in Romeo & Juliet cried. Yeah it was fucking weird. It’s in its infancy right now.
“No deadlines, no ball tripping, no drama, just 2 grown ass men using essential oils and bold new perfumes shooting ideas and scooting their ass across the fucking lawn trying to get rid of these worms.”
Check out ‘The Widow’ by The Mars Volta:
