It was recently announced that all of The Mars Volta’s catalog of albums would be released in a ginormous box set of vinyl called La Realidad De Los Suenos. As part of that set is this newly remastered and compiled recordings from the first sessions for De-Loused in the Comatorium, The Mars Volta’s first album. Due to its historical significance, they also decided to release Landscape Tantrums on streaming services.

What makes this interesting is how it lacks the Rick Rubin-produced polish of the original album. It is more about the performance and style than the perfection and I can appreciate that. Notably missing is the song Cicatriz ESP, which is strange because I am pretty sure it was recorded at that time, since I have old demo recordings of it. There are a lot of subtle differences in some of the effects used throughout, but these recordings aren’t radically different. The biggest difference I noticed was that Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt is about 4 minutes longer, but it doesn’t really feel like that extra length makes it any better of a song.

For fans of The Mars Volta, this is a cool re-visit of an amazing album from an alternate listening angle. I think De-Loused in the Comatorium is a near perfect prog/hard/punk rock album, but I think the band realized during the recording that they wanted to control their music themselves. Even the original cover they wanted (jellyfish man) was vetoed by their record label for the “egg man” cover.

Rick Rubin is known for being a hit producer, but he lacks nuance that could make some recordings more sonically desirable. He employs more of a cookie-cutter approach to music production, which is fine for mainstream pop stuff. When you have a very creative band like The Mars Volta, it makes more sense to let them spread their wings and fly free.