Having the newest thing used to be a personality trait. What I've learned from watching the surveillance state proliferate, is that the only thing I want to be a bleeding edge early adopter of is treating people with dignity and compassion.

!!! I am so sorry. Ugh.

Anyway none of my close friends are Mars Volta fans and online MV fans are mad they don't sound the same as they did when they were At the Drive In so I will just continue to pour my love for them out here. I will always ride for a band that makes an *album* every time.

Watching them perform the album live was everything. Teri Gender Bender was perfect, and holy god Linda-Philomène Tsoungui was a revelation. Cedric's voice just gets more beautiful.

Shoutout to the UNC design team for this beautiful cover. I love it!

Because I didn't keep up with band news for many, many years, and because I protect my peace by not reading details about SA cases, I had no idea about Cedric and scientology and the way I gasped when that part of the story came up!