For a band that experiments with glossolalia and pig scalps, the Mars Volta open their latest with a rather straightforward image. "Do you remember how you wore that dress?" sings Cedric Bixler-Zavala in "Since We've Been Wrong," a mostly acoustic prog-soul tune that's totally hummable. It sets the tone for an LP haunted by heartbreak and more focused on soulful vocal emoting than on cool time signatures and guitar flip-outs. But Bixler-Zavala is no Maxwell; he's more about sharp pain than voluptuous ache. By the end, he invokes Gordian knots alongside a fractallike Omar Rodriguez-Lopez guitar solo. Dude sounds like he's back home again.