Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s Sworn Virgins is less of an album and more of a garage sale. It’s the first of 12 solo albums to be released this year. Yup, 12. The 40-year-old Puerto Rican of Mars Volta and At The Drive-In fame, has sifted through his personal works from 2008 to 2013 and laid them on the lawn.
If it wasn’t for the label’s mission to be “a place where bands we admire have the freedom to release music they might not be able to, or want to, release on other labels,” Sworn Virgins would probably never have seen the light of day. It’s experimental and raw – the recordings are live one-take cuts bar a few re-recorded vocals.
It sounds like an entire prog rock band, but it’s not. It’s just Rodriguez-Lopez and Deantoni Parks, also of Mars Volta, whacking away on the drums. A critical component to this illusion is the use of a sample pedal, allowing Rodriguez-Lopez to loop his guitar pitched up and down. It’s a little undercooked. Generally, practise makes better.
The album comes across as overly self indulgent. It’s Rodriguez-Lopez messing about. Offer the gold, rather than making the listener wade knee deep through sewers of jam sessions (unless you’re Tom Waits or you’re dead). If you’re into Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, this is a way to intimately get to know him.
BY LEE SPENCER-MICHAELSEN
