Top 10 Rock Concept Albums of the Past 10 Years #3

#3: De-loused in the Comatorium (2003) by the Mars Volta: As one of the intellectual and musical descendents of Pink Floyd and Genesis (Peter Gabriel-era), the Mars Volta created a real gem with their debut album, De-loused in the Comatorium. Based on a short story written by singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala and sound manipulator Jeremy Michael Ward, De-loused follows the main character Cerpin Taxt through a rat poison and morphine induced coma. Upon waking, he becomes unsatisfied with the real world and plunges to his death. Many songs feature a jazzy beat with a bit of flamenco flare wrapped around hard rock guitar riffs and the Robert Plantesque swooning of Bixler-Zavala. The Mars Volta made experimental instrumentation and odd time signatures cool again with De-loused in the Comatorium. Album highlights: “Inertiatic ESP” and “This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed.”