The Mars Volta played their first show following a decade-long hiatus on Thursday (September 22nd), kicking off their much-anticipated 2022 run (grab tickets here) at The Factory at Deep Ellum in Dallas, Texas. In doing so, they proved that it is possible to be sorely missed despite never really going away.

While the acclaimed prog-rock band was dormant, the minds behind it remained consistently prolific. During the hiatus, guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala revived that other highly influential band of theirs, the seminal post-hardcore outfit At the Drive-In, to the tune of a new album and several high-profile festival appearances, while finding time to individually put out deep catalogs of solo work and side projects.

Despite this constant stream of output, a comeback from the duo as The Mars Volta still has the potential to fill a noticeable void. As music fans grow increasingly weary of lo-fi production and two minute, social-media friendly soundbites, there’s a distinct space for more theatrical and experimental artists. (Their similarly flamboyant contemporaries in My Chemical Romance are also finding great success scratching this exact itch on their current tour.)