Seeing as there was a pretty long thread on The Mars Volta a few months back, what are your thoughts on this progressive rock/post-hardcore band? Please stick to constructive posts that actually lead to some sort of moderately intellectual discussion.

Frankly, I enjoyed their older material (Ghostship Demos + Self titled) but I downloaded their new EP after listening to it while extremely baked in a friend of mine's car and it's a pretty decent remake of the older stuff.

They are a decent band with a couple of good songs, can't say that I'm a huge fan though

Ah! I'm sorry man but I don't like 'em that much. A bit back there was one or two songs I liked, but the more I listened to their stuff the more I couldn't stand it. Good instrumentation, bad writing in my opinion. Maybe I didn't listen to them enough, but all of their songs sounded too much a like to me. A few songs stood out to me with some good music, but most of them sounded like average post-hardcore (or worse, emo) with lots of guitar wank put in between. I remember they had one guitar solo that I loved, but the rest sounded too much like unnecessary bragging.

Also, the worst screamer I have ever heard.

I don't mean to start an argument. No means to dis on your taste or anything. I'm just expressing my opinion, and they, to me, seem average at best. But to each his own, right?

The guitarist makes some pretty interesting riffs. They're ok, I suppose.

I dig the instrumentation, cool time changes and whatnot, but the singing vocals are so ridiculously high pitched, it's kind've hard for me to listen for too long. I thought they sounded like Chiodos mixed with the Blood Brothers.

Heh. Back in my just pre-metal days, the fall of troy were my favourite band. I still enjoy listening to some of it, it's one of the very few bands from my past I still have interest in. Unfortunately, since the time I was listening to them when Doppelganger first came out Thomas Erak has managed to only sell out much, much more. The remakes of the ghostships was a horrible disappointment, they announced it a good three or four years before it was done, and when it was done all the tempos were slowed down and it was a download-only release.
It's hard to say because I have such a strong nostalgic attachment to it, the song "the circus that has brought us back to these nights" stabs my heart every time I listen to it now... Either way, Erak did a pretty good job being a single guitarist sounding like two or three with his use of delay pedals and other effects.

I have that same exact feeling with "The Last March Of The Ents". That's one of the reasons I still listen to them.

I almost covered that song back in the day. It's pretty fucked up, I learned it on drums and it's in something like 7/8 time. 7/something, whatever it was. Not to mention on ever other bar where it sounds like random noise, it's actually thomas rubbing his guitar strings against the wall of his amp.

I like to listen to The Fall of Troy occasionally. Only problem is that their music can get a little on my nerves, kind of like the same way Mars Volta does - mostly because of the high-pitched vocals. I like the technicality and chaos they bring though.