The Mars Volta announces acoustic album

Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon is due April 21st

The Mars Volta has announced an acoustic version of their self-titled seventh studio album for release on CD and LP on April 21st called Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon. Much more than a simple “unplugged” version of The Mars Volta, the acoustic rendition furthers the mission of the source music, which drew into sharper focus the traditional Latin influences that have always inspired Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala. Rodríguez-López describes the album as a “folk record,” tracing the melodies and rhythms of the parent album back to their traditional Caribbean roots and challenging listeners to hear the group in an entirely new light.

The upcoming new album isn’t simply more content, but a bold, radical, political album, and one that re-contextualizes the music of the group’s powerful last album within the lineage of the Latin and Caribbean sounds that Rodríguez-López has been mining his entire career, only many ears couldn’t hear past the distorted guitars to know what was going on. The songs are re-orchestrated and set to the traditional Caribbean rhythms that Rodríguez-López grew up on. “Black Condolences” becomes an object lesson in this music, segueing between three different traditional rhythms across its three-and-a-half minutes.

For Rodríguez-López, Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon is a long-held dream, finally coming true. “I realized I could finally make a record like this now, I just had to make it happen,” he says. “That was the experiment. And it was super-fun. I feel like The Mars Volta is finally beginning – that’s why the last album was self- titled, because we’ve finally stripped everything away and arrived at what the whole concept was at the beginning. And this acoustic version comes from a profound place, with its own meaning and philosophy, and its own reason for being.”

Their previous release – the critically acclaimed – The Mars Volta was the band’s first new music in almost a decade.

The Mars Volta recently announced a string of upcoming headline tour dates that will take place this May and include performances at Shaky Knees Festival in Atlanta, Welcome To Rockville Festival in Daytona, FL and a show supporting Red Hot Chili Peppers in San Diego, CA.