Formed out of the ashes of Texas Post-Hardcore band, At The Drive In, The Mars Volta were one of my favourite heavy bands from the nineties. Their mixture of Avant Garde, Metal and Progressive Rock, howling guitars and jazzy drumming made them an exciting improvisational live act and a dynamic studio band. The Widow appeared on their second album, Frances The Mute and featured the prolific Omar Rodriguez-Lopez on guitar, Cedric Bixler-Zavala on vocals, Juan Alderete de la Peña on bass, Isaiah “Ikey” Owens on keyboards, Jon Theodore on drums and Omar’s younger brother, Marcel Rodríguez-López on percussion.

The Widow is a slow burning fuse with all the odd musical harmonies and slicing solos in the guitars that The Mars Volta are famous for – oddly it also features Flea on trumpet. Strange sounds have always emanated from The Mars Volta and The Widow is no exception with the last two and half minutes of the song sounding like a circus of madness.

Lyrically, it’s rich and disturbing:

He’s got fasting black lungs
Made of clove splintered shardes
They’re the kind that will talk
Through a weezing of coughs
And I hear him every night
In every pore
And every time he just makes me warm

Freeze without an answer
Free from all the shame
Must I hide
‘Cause I’ll never never sleep alone

Look at how they flock to him
From an isle of open sores
He knows that the taste is such
Such to die for
And I hear him every night
On every street
The scales that do slither
Deliver me from?
Freeze without an answer
Free from all the shame
Then I’ll hide
‘Cause I’ll never never sleep alone

Oh Lord
Said I’m bloodshot for sure
Pale runs the ghost
Swollen on the shore
Swollen on the shore
Everynight
In every pore
The scales that do slither
Deliver me from?
Freeze without an answer
Free from all the shame
Then I’ll hide
‘Cause I’ll never never sleep alone

Freeze without an answer
Free from all the shame
Let me die
‘Cause I’ll never never sleep alone

The band went onto make six albums between 2003 and 2012. Rodriguez-Lopez has made close to 30 solo albums in various incarnations and has countless guest appearances. In 2013 after the break up of  The Mars Volta he formed Bosnian Rainbows  – go here for a post about the band on the In Deep Music Archive:

http://indeepmusicarchive.net/2013/11/bosnian-rainbows-2013/

Bosnian Rainbows is a collaboration between Rodriguez-Lopez and Teresa Suárez from Le Butcherettes.

Go here for an article about Le Butcherettes (Rodriguez-Lopez plays bass):

http://indeepmusicarchive.net/2013/11/le-butcherettes-henry-dont-got-love/

Bixler-Zavala has his own band Zavala, that also features Frances the Mute’s Juan Alderete de la Peña on bass. He has also played drums with Alderete de la Peña’s band, Big Sir and Psychedelic band, Anywhere’s revolving door of musicians that has included The Minutemen’s Mike Watt, The Melvins’ Dale Crover and Nirvana’s Kris Novoselic. Jon Theodore is currently the drummer in Queens Of The Stoneage. Marcel Rodríguez-López released an Electronic solo album as Eureka The Butcher in 2013.  Sadly keyboardist, Owens died of a heart attack in 2014.

Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala’s latest project together is Antemasque with an album released in 2014 – hopefully their collaboration will continue. Although Rodriguez-Lopez met Cedric Bixler-Zavala in El Paso he was born in Puerto Rico. I haven’t been able to determine Bixler-Zavala’s origins although he was born in California, but that Spanish name might explain the two having a friendship and one of the highlights of their band was always Bixler-Zavala singing in Spanish. (L’Via L’Viaquez for example on Frances The Mute is one of my favourite tracks on the album).

One of the most interesting bands that has evolved in recent years, incorporating heavy sounds and striking guitars, weirdness and power, experimental rhythms and arrangements, I never tire of their music and happily I got to see them live a couple of times before they broke up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mars_Volta

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_the_Mute

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Widow_(song)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Rodr%C3%ADguez-López

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_Rainbows

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Butcherettes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedric_Bixler-Zavala

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anywhere_(band)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antemasque

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_%22Ikey%22_Owens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Theodore

Note: This is the edited version of the song, it reached No.95 on the US charts and No.20 in the UK.