"Three tracks. Seven dollars." As a dirt poor student, the thought stung like hornets chasing the half-melted Big Kat bar in my cargo shorts. Would the CD contain a coupon for a free egg at the local Faberge Hut? Was it hand-etched? I sighed. One of the greatest triumphs (indirectly) of the Industrial Revolution had been that, thanks to the wonders of mass-production, I never had to pay more than, like, $1.50 per song-- until today. Staring at the seven-dollar EP I held in my hands made that bygone era of child-labor, workplace fatalities, and people who lit cigars with C-notes (like the Monopoly Guy) seem like a wonderful, wonderful pipe dream. Audiogalaxy! Why hast thou forsaken me in my hour of need?

But, as the old saying goes, "A fool and his money are soon parted for the new Tremulant EP by The Mars Volta." As I put down the greenbacks, these guys-- including Cedric Bixler and Omar Rodriguez of At the Drive-In fame-- instantly had one strike against them. I'll be honest. If the album sucked, paying seven dollars for three tracks would make it suck so much harder, and even if it were really good-- $2.33 per song good-- three tracks would just be a tease. I tossed and turned all night, imagining Bixler & Co. having a friendly cash fight in their McDuck-like vaults, but then figured that if that were the case, they'd have been able to afford decent haircuts by now. Regardless, my expectations for this disc were high.

Skepticism struck first, but luckily, the thrashing, distorted guitar lacerations and numbing, effects-driven interludes on Tremulant form a pretty convincing counter-argument. The influence of At the Drive-In is immediately evident, unsurprisingly, and The Mars Volta seems to pick up where their old band left off. Gone are previous missteps like the awkward spoken-word beat poetry jams and all-out howling Bixler has been so prone to in days past, distilling their sound to its most brutal immediacy.

Ironically, The Mars Volta has a leaner, meaner edge despite the fact that almost half of this album's nineteen minutes are spent on aimless, noodling instrumental segments. Funny enough, these have been touted as "free-jazz entropy" and "like Can" by the label's website, so logic says I, a contemporary indie thug, should like them. Maybe even more than the other stuff. But nope, you read right: aimless, noodling. I mean that.

Aside from the two minutes of straight tape hiss that start the disc, "Cut That City" and "Concertina" manage to keep the solo-type material presentable, although the final minutes of "Eunuch Provocateur" nearly enter the dreaded realm of jam-band jackin' around. The guitar interaction in these tripped-out effect-storms is often interesting and complex, and they're actually just fine within the scope of this EP, but they could easily drain all the vitality from the EP if it weren't for Jon Theodore's absolutely stellar drum work. Even when Tremulant seems lost in a mire of screeching distortions and echo-pedaling, a constant undercurrent of desperate urgency is preserved by the frantic drive of Theo's shifting tempos.

The musical intensity is matched capably by Bixler's vocals, which have wisely been somewhat reined in; it's like having all the intensity of At the Drive-In with 20% less pretense. He gives an impressive performance, but it's what he's saying that makes Tremulant really shine. The content of the EP has a surprisingly global feel to it, and is a drastic departure from the personal trials and tribulations that formed the basis of his prior work. In just three songs, topics range from urban stagnation to personal betrayal to political upheaval, while Bixler drops fifty-cent words like Martha Stewart's stockbroker on an inside-tip selling spree. The strangely stream-of-consciousness composition makes phrases like "The labefaction is venal" and "Neo-Caesaristic phallic ruins" sound like excerpts from an unpublished Burroughs cut-ups project or a Mensa Mad Libs party, but amazingly, it works.

But be warned! The Tremulant EP gets an even 7.0-- one for each dollar I paid for it-- by virtue of quality, but I still wish I had a month's supply of ramen instead. But hey, if you simply must keep tabs on the latest ATDI projects, the nervy, tension-filled grooves and hooks should satisfy. Just know that this EP heralds good things on the horizon, and wait patiently for the sixty-dollar full-length.

-Eric Carr, June 25th, 2002