This is the closest you'll get to The Mars Volta unplugged. Reducing its ranks to six, the prog/metal/funk/punk/Latin-jazz powerhouse sheds some shred and stops lighting dynamite under every track to make songs like "With Twilight As My Guide", a creepy spaghetti-western lullaby set amid the Salem witch trials. "Since We've Been Wrong" is also fireworks-free yet evocative, acoustic strum letting Cedric Bixler-Zavala's Dalí-esque poetry unfurl in delicate, unusually discernable coos. "Cotopaxi" rocks mightily, but "Copernicus" trades guitar solos for quiet electronica.