After the perfect one-two punch of De-Loused in the Comatorium and Frances the Mute, the Mars Volta faltered a bit. Amputechture and The Bedlam in Goliath tried to recapture much of the free-form wildness that made the first two records so great, but they were a little bit too untethered from the earth (vinyl copies are north of a hundred dollars, so that might be the sour grapes talking).

In the dust of the bloated, over-ambitious Bedlam, the group shifted gears and made Octahedron, which they described as an “unplugged” record—and in my opinion, the best record since Frances.

Of course, this isn’t actually an unplugged record. Not by any other band’s standards, at leasts. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s effects rig might be paired back compared to earlier Volta records, but it’s still warped into volcanic tones and spaced out reverbs. There are more ballads than a typical Volta record (three), but the band still has plenty of hard rock riffage that would make Led Zeppelin proud. “Halo of Nembutals” rides a bombastic rhythm section through an ever-climbing series of climaxes. The off-time “Cotopaxi” could have been on De-Loused if it were about five minutes longer. “Desperate Graves” grooves its way to one of the most satisfyingly fist-pumping choruses in the band’s catalogue.

But the biggest shift here is a focus on straightforward songwriting. Only “Luciforms,” the slinking, swaggering last track, breaks the eight-minute mark, and that’s the only song with any sort of soloing at all. Many of the songs are around a tight five minutes. While this more traditional approach disappointed many longtime fans, it strikes me as a necessary detour. Amputechture and Bedlam lost themselves in the stratosphere of their own maximalist noodling and were needlessly overwhelming. Octahedron’s restraint proved that they could do composition just as well as chaos.

The result is some of the most beautiful songs in the group’s catalog. “Since We’ve Been Wrong” opens the record with a finger picked acoustic guitar and one of Cedric Bixler’s most heart-rending melodies. “With Twilight As My Guide” is a creeping ballad in the tradition of “Televators” from De-Loused, complete with plenty of spacey guitar atmospherics from ORL. “Copernicus” is probably the most delicate thing they have ever done, yet stands on its own against the more muscular tracks on the disk.

There’s no argument in saying that Octahedron is the Mars Volta’s least ambitious record. But to imply that that makes it boring is right off. After all, it was the group’s unrestrained ambition that led them to lose themselves in spazzy self-indulgence. Instead, this album showcases that after years of being criticized as little more than a chaotic jam band, they still had the songwriting chops to back up what made them great. It strips away every element that led people to dismiss them, and proves that they had enough raw talent to live up to their legacy. Octahedron might not be the best album of their post-Frances career, but it was the album that reignited my interest in the group.