The Mars Volta - Landscape Tantrums (Unfinished Original Recordings Of De​-​Loused In The Comatorium) (LP) - Transparent Vinyl

The story of Landscape Tantrums is catnip for anyone who fell in love with De-Loused in the Comatorium and wondered what the band sounded like before Rick Rubin ushered them into The Mansion. These are the unfinished original recordings made by The Mars Volta’s earliest lineup in 2002, then shelved when the group re-cut the album with Rubin and a few famous friends. It first surfaced in 2021 as part of the Clouds Hill box set La Realidad de los Sueños, then landed as a standalone release in 2022. On vinyl, it feels like stepping into the practice space with a band mid-mutation, buzzing on electricity and ideas.

Part of the draw is personnel. You get Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López at their most feral, but also keyboardist Isaiah Ikey Owens and sound manipulator Jeremy Michael Ward working in the foreground. Ward’s presence is especially vivid here, a ghostly collage artist stitching sirens, tape hiss, and radio squall into the songs rather than tucking them into the margins. Early bassist Eva Gardner is on these takes too. De-Loused eventually leaned on Flea for much of the album, which gave that record a elastic punch. Landscape Tantrums trades that virtuoso snap for something earthier and more conspiratorial, a rhythm section locking in like a well rehearsed live band.

The bones of the debut are here. You hear the familiar shapes of Son et Lumiere bleeding into Inertiatic ESP, the chaos math of Drunkship of Lanterns, the elegant freefall of Televators, and the winding architecture of Cicatriz ESP. What changes is the temperature. These versions run a little hotter, with fewer overdubs and a lot less safety net. Cedric’s vocals are closer to the mic and more knife edged. Jon Theodore’s drums slam with that proggy, hip hop inflected weight he was bringing to clubs at the time, and the cymbals bloom in a way the finished album tends to tame. Guitars spit rather than glaze. Even when the arrangements match the 2003 blueprints, the mood is different. Less alchemy, more spark.

You can hear why Rubin’s team redrew the lines. De-Loused is a studio epic with guests like John Frusciante and a glistening low end that could fill arenas. Landscape Tantrums is the prequel that leans into the band’s punk and hardcore DNA, the At The Drive In afterimage still flickering at the edges. That contrast is half the thrill. Eriatarka, for instance, breathes more. The breakbeats feel like they could tip into a jam at any moment, while Ward sneaks in textures that would later be smoothed out. Televators lands like a field recording of grief rather than a set piece. When the guitars peel off into noise, you almost expect the tape to shred.

Plenty of critics treated the release as more than a curio. The consensus was that this is a legitimate alternate lens on a landmark album, and not just a bundle of demos. That tracks with how it feels in the room. The band had the songs. They had the story arc. They were still figuring out the sheen. Hearing that process makes the eventual 2003 album feel even more audacious, because you can tell how much they chose to embellish and how much they chose to leave alone.

If you collect The Mars Volta vinyl, this one earns its space. The mastering leans into dynamics rather than loudness, which suits the material. Crank it and the low mids stand up, giving Gardner’s lines a warm punch while keeping Ward’s interference patterns alive in the corners. The whole thing rewards volume and a good pair of speakers. Landscape Tantrums vinyl is also an easy gateway for fans who came in later and want to trace the lineage back to that first big bang. For those of us who still buy The Mars Volta records online, Clouds Hill’s reissue campaign has made it simpler to keep the shelf up to date, and The Mars Volta albums on vinyl are finally back in print after years of Discogs purgatory.

I love how it reframes the band’s mythology. De-Loused has a reputation as a studio beast, and rightfully so. Landscape Tantrums reminds you how much of that magic was already in their hands before the budget, before the star cameos, before tragedy hardened the edges. It is a document of a band running on nerve and caffeine and trust. If you turn it up in a quiet room, you can almost smell the amps and feel the air move. That is the charm, whether you found it in a dusty bin at a Melbourne record store or while scrolling a site that ships vinyl records Australia wide. Either way, this is the kind of archival release that earns repeat plays, not because it fills in trivia, but because it still sounds alive.