The Mars Volta - Octahedron

The Mars Volta are a stupendously mental band. They're not known for gentle, calming moments. What they are known for is giant hair, 10-minute songs, and otherwordly guitar spazz-outs, so this, their self-dubbed "acoustic album", could still be a crazy litttle bugger to justify that tag, and guess what, it sort of is...

Some tracks, like 'With Twilight As My Guide' - which features genuine acoustic guitar - are floaty and strangely soothing. But others, like 'Cotopaxi', are big, funky space-jams of Hendrix tripping out on the upper-deck of a space shuttle that's just docked into a moon somewhere particularly craterous and, um, lumpy.

So, at its core, still very distinctive Volta, then. But it's also a bit more accessible than previous efforts, and a complete thunderpunch live. It also seems that their marginally less-manic sound has been replicated in the guitarist's hair, which judging by this promo pic, has lost about 27-square feet of bulk.

We test all our albums on a NaimUniti stereo. If we were testing for sound quality, every album would get five stars. But we're good little journalists, so we can't. Check out more at www.naimaudio.com. They make good stuff, believe us.