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An immersive exploration in four movements
Label: Clouds Hill
Cat No.: CH404
Format: Double Album Black Vinyl
Matrix/Stampers: (Side A): Vv YA 6815-1 A, (Side B): V= YA 6815-1 B, (Side C): =˄ YA 6815-1 C, (Side D): v˄ YA 6815-1 D
On first encounter, Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos del Vacío is not so much an album as an object—an artefact. From its stark outer sleeve devoid of text, to the embossed globe insert and the hidden lettering printed inside the opening seam, it evokes the quiet elegance and mystery of a Factory Records release. It is as if the packaging itself resists easy access, asking to be handled, studied, lived with. A recent interpretation by Johann Scheerer, a respected contributor to the Mars Volta community, even suggests the cover contains a cartographic riddle: inverted Northern Hemisphere constellations layered with topographic maps and walking routes, only fully revealed through touch. Whether by accident or design, it invites a form of sonic and visual wayfinding rarely seen in the era of streaming.
And that act of patient decoding is central to appreciating the music within.
As an artistic statement, this is a record best approached as four unified sides rather than a collection of tracks. It’s short by double-album standards—just under 50 minutes—but it works as a complete narrative arc, divided across its two discs.
Side One – Fin through The Iron Rose
The album opens tenderly, almost misleadingly so, with jazz-fusion inflections and a wash of hand-played, organic percussion. Beneath this lies a hypnotic melodic motif—one not too far removed from the soft tides of My Bloody Valentine’s Soon. It’s unexpected from The Mars Volta, and all the more affecting because of that. There’s a grace here, a fragility even, that feels new. The band’s intention seems clear from the outset: to displace, to unseat expectation. If you’re looking for the angular contortions of Televators or the storm of Goliath, you’re in the wrong orbit.
Side Two – Cue The Sun through Poseedora de Mi Sombra
The second side deepens the mood. There’s a swathing pulse of melody throughout, which gently drifts into moments of something bordering on lounge music—not ironically, but sincerely. Some fans may be thrown by this unexpected turn, but it’s oddly perfect. There’s a weightlessness here that makes the time disappear. It’s hard to think of another TMV record where the clock moves quite this quickly.
Side Three – Celaje through Maullidos
Ethnic percussion returns, and with it, a flicker of The Mars Volta’s trademark guitar sound. But it’s fleeting. The guitars fade again into minimal jazz textures, and we’re ushered into the album’s most haunted passage: a slow, funeral-paced piano motif that carries into the closing movements like a procession. Cedric’s vocals are more accessible here—less cryptic, more personal. There’s a sense of spiritual reckoning in these lyrics, as though the band is wrestling with redemption, only to ultimately surrender to fate.
Side Four – Morgana through Lucro Sucio
The album’s final arc feels like a gentle descent—acceptance, recollection, maybe even goodbye. The lyrical refrain “The past always comes around” is quietly devastating, repeating over wistful layers of flute (or is it Mellotron?) and what sounds like upright bass. “Can’t get you out of my mind,” Cedric sings, and you feel the ghost of lost love shimmering through the mix. By the time we arrive at Lucro Sucio, the record has folded itself inward, closing with a lounge-tinged coda that could have been lifted from some imagined jazz club at the edge of memory.
This won’t be an easy listen for fans expecting the tangled fury of Frances the Mute or Amputechture. It’s restrained, wistful, even beautiful in a way that The Mars Volta has only hinted at before. Reactions online are predictably divided—one fan, in particular, hated it on first listen but admitted that by the fourth play they were “rolling on the floor in ecstasy.”
That’s the kind of record this is. It doesn’t demand your attention. It waits patiently for it. And when you give in, it offers something few albums do these days: a sense of place, a sense of loss, and the quiet relief of surrendering to both.
4.8 out of 5.0 stars
