Not content with providing rich source material for Tenacious D, The Mars Volta set out to turn art into life after deciding a string of increasingly indulgent solo albums from guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is just what the world needs to prepare it for another band record.

This is Spinal Tap without the sense of self-deprecation, a bad joke played for real and, above all, too long by about a thousand guitar solos.

The songs don’t so much grow as sprawl, like some hideous shopping centre eating up the greenbelt.

Buried deep in the guts of tracks like Teflon and Cotopaxi are melodies and hooks that would have stood on their own, but they’re buried beneath welters of riffs and beats that simply don’t belong.