In this month’s Uncut, Guy Garvey previews Latitude and notes, with regard to The Mars Volta, “We’re all into some heavy prog.” A sceptic might say that you’d need to be, given that this remarkable Californian band have a much more unambiguous relationship with prog rock than most of their more timid contemporaries.

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When they’re on form, though, The Mars Volta are one of modern rock’s strangest and most gripping spectacles. Cedric Bixler-Zavalas and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez‘ band conjure up a frantic combination of punk rock velocity, Santana-esque virtuosity, strangulated vocal ululations, dub-derived sonic trickery, Latino rhythms, the more complicated bits of Yes, mind-blowingly unintelligible lyrics and – yes! – some pretty excellent tunes.

Mars Volta shows are often wild, untethered and epic. But for newcomers (and for some mildly shellshocked veterans), the relative economy of a headlining slot on the Uncut stage might just work to their advantage. Get a good position to watch Bixler’s fabulous gymnastics, and let’s hope they play “Cicatriz ESP”, right?