24. The Mars Volta

GSL/Strummer/Universal

Combining near-suicidal excess with hairpin-turn discipline, the Mars Volta's second album is the most confounding and compelling hard-rock album of '05: a wildly nonlinear, bilingual tale of abandonment and breakdown, scored with hyperfusion time changes, animal-guitar math and sudden healing pools of norteno folk and salsa piano. The only thing more astonishing than the swing from the concise avant-Zeppelin of "The Widow" to the half-hour lunacy of "Cassandra Gemini" is the idea that this kind of dementia could be played live. The proof: the end-of-year concert release Scabdates.

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