Omar And Cedric

The Wire - The Complete Series Remastered in HD (2002-2008)
1080p WEB-DL 5.1 x264 | MKV h264 16:9 1912x1072 4845 kbps 23.97 fps | 3645 mn | 133.60 GB
Audio: English AC-3 Dolby Digital 5.1 @ 384 kbps | Subtitles: English
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller, Series | Country: USA

Set in Baltimore, this show centers around the city's inner-city drug scene. It starts as mid-level drug dealer, D'Angelo Barksdale beats a murder rap. After a conversation with a judge, Det. James McNulty has been assigned to lead a joint homicide and narcotics team, in order to bring down drug kingpin Avon Barksdale. Avon Barksdale, accompanied by his right-hand man Stringer Bell, enforcer Wee-Bey and many lieutenants (including his own nephew, D'Angelo Barksdale), has to deal with law enforcement, informants in his own camp, and competition with a local rival, Omar, who's been robbing Barksdale's dealers and reselling the drugs. The supervisor of the investigation, Lt. Cedric Daniels, has to deal with his own problems, such as a corrupt bureaucracy, some of his detectives beating suspects, hard-headed but determined Det. McNulty, and a blackmailing deputy. The show depicts the lives of every part of the drug "food chain", from junkies to dealers, and from cops to politicians.

It can't come as a surprise that the Mars Volta's fourth album opens with a bang - sonic terrorism is one of the only things listeners can count on from the band - but it's genuinely novel that The Bedlam in Goliath never lets go of its momentum, not even after a full hour's worth of unrelenting war on silence, the wrapping paper for a concept album about the power of the occult. On their first three proper albums, Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez played games of quiet-loud-quiet (or loud-quiet-loud), sneaking around stealthily for minutes at a time before detonating another blast of thrash metal riffing and piercing screams. The Bedlam in Goliath is simply loud-loud-loud, virtually every song played at maximum volume and tempo…

The Mars Volta are continual contenders for the mantle of most experimental high-profile rock group, along with System of a Down, an artist they've toured with but who usually sell 20 times more records. Mars Volta aren't as popular, not because their riffs are less memorable or innovative but because their cycle of musical buildup and release, although similarly jarring, can last at least 20 minutes instead of System's two. (It's the difference between having a background in acid rock and having one in thrash.) While the early reports on third album Amputechture commented that the duo of Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez had learned a few lessons about silence and forsaken the concept album, don't believe it…

When At the Drive-In decapitated itself, it basically split a whole into two halves; the Mars Volta took up the more ethereal, spacy, and experimental one. This project seems to pretty much abandon the nearly radio-friendly station they had previously taken up with Relationship of Command by creating an epic-length masterpiece of quirky, spacious sound rather than the more upfront rock aspects (the half of which is now embodied in the other ATDI offshoot band, Sparta). With Tremulant, the Mars Volta threaten to outdo the sizzling body of work of their past lives with the creation of something seething and timeless, melding their more beautiful and transcendent styles with rhythmic battery and shimmering gloss. Cedric's vocals mesmerize, as always, backed with the odd lust of Omar's melody and the powerhouse rhythm section and keys.

A few disarming moments on Octahedron unfold slowly, with pockets of space and calm. Don’t be lured into trusting them. This album, the fifth studio release by the Mars Volta, employs stillness as a setup for all manner of disruption: sharply pealing riffs, phantasmagorical metaphors, convoluted song structures. In many ways it’s a typical effort from the guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and the vocalist Cedric Bixler Zavala, who make up the Mars Volta’s cunning and ever-agitated core. But that’s not to discredit the more measured side of Octahedron, a harbor for some of this psychedelic prog-rock band’s most alluring melodies and among its most coherent recordings. Presented as an eight-song suite, the album delivers a panoramic range of intensity, sliding along that range in ways both gradual and startling…

The Mars Volta - Amputechture (2006) [Universal Distribution]
EACRip | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 535 MB | MP3 @320 -> 181 MB | Full HQ Artwork Scans Included
© Universal Distribution | 7214 | Experimental Rock / Progressive Rock / Hard Rock

The album is little different than their two previous atom bombs, De-Loused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute — tense and anxious, continually pushing the boundaries of extreme production, with long periods of dynamics that rise ever higher, followed by an explosion of release (usually screaming hard rock with storms of atonal brass and horns). The album opens with "Vicarious Atonement," five minutes of spectral effects and piercing guitar that gets a boost at the beginning of the next track, "Tetragrammaton," and then blooms into full riffing glory after a few more minutes (and they're still nowhere near the end of the 16-minute track). John Frusciante, eccentric genius from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, returns on guitar, but Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez exert so much control over the sound of Mars Volta that Frusciante makes virtually no individual impression on this record, although most of the guitar work is his. (Granted, his presence leaves Rodriguez-Lopez open for more intricate work on production.) The Mars Volta are one of the most intriguing bands in rock, but their huge musical power is often deflected by Bixler-Zavala's conceptual themes (which are difficult to follow, but also, perversely, impossible to ignore) and blitzkrieg dynamics that are either dialed down to one or up to ten (but rarely in-between).

The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute (2005) [Universal Distribution]
EACRip | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 539 MB | MP3 @320 -> 178 MB | Full HQ Artwork Scans Included
© Universal Distribution | 000412902 | Experimental Rock / Progressive Rock / Hard Rock

After the amazing Deloused in the Comatorium, The Mars Volta gave themselves two years to mess around with their confusing guitar sounds, vague lyrics, jazz and Latin influences. It turns out that Frances The Mute is the masterpiece some people are looking for, featuring arguably better musicianship, lyrical themes, and tighter sound than on their excellent debut. The CD ends up being three minutes short of eighty. From beginning to end, the album is a prime example of how to mix every genre of rock together, plus some stuff from outside the box, without ruining things. Frances The Mute is more than a musical adventure into the prodigal minds of The Mars Volta, and is more than the best album of 2005. It's The Mars Volta, at their very best.