According to a teaser video from Clouds Hill Recordings, The Mars Volta has something called “La Realidad De Los Sueños” in the works. The band has been hinting at an imminent reunion for the past few years, after breaking up in 2013.
The teaser doesn’t give much else away, but it’s captioned “COMING SOON // The Mars Volta.” The words “La Realidad De Los Sueños” quickly flash on the screen a few times along with The Mars Volta’s name, and then the video ends. The words mean “the reality of dreams” in English.
Vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez first reunited in late 2016 to release a comeback album called in•ter a•li•a for their other band, At the Drive-In. By 2018, enough fans were wondering about a potential reunion for The Mars Volta that Bixler-Zavala eventually responded, saying that it was planned for but not imminent, “I appreciate the rabid infection that spreads when anything Volta is discussed, but it’ll be a while b4 that ship takes off.”
In 2019, Bixler-Zavala told a fan that The Mars Volta was “in the kitchen finding new ways to through curve balls.” When another fan tweeted, “I dream with you guys giving TMV a new chapter” a week later, Bixler-Zavala responded, “It’s happening.”
On the prospect of a reunion tour, Bixler-Zavala stated, “What it’s NOT going to be is your ‘fav member lineup’ playing their ‘classic records’ in full etc. Maybe we’ll play old shit, who knows how we feel. Just remember our past campaigns never relied on playing requests or going fully backwards …it’s new shit, new people, left turns , tangent inconsistencies, mazapan dreams and churro wishes. I will say this though, when ORL played me a grip of new shit I fucking cried. Like Claire Daines in Romeo & Juliet cried. Yeah it was fucking weird. It’s in its infancy right now. No deadlines, no ball tripping, no drama, just 2 grown ass men using essential oils and bold new perfumes shooting ideas and scooting their ass across the fucking lawn trying to get rid of these worms.”
The Mars Volta’s last album was Noctourniquet (2012). Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez have released music together a few times since then, including the recent At the Drive-In output and 2014’s Antemasque self-titled.