Spring Break
The Mars Volta bring noise, funk with 'The Bedlam in Goliath'
The prog-rock band's latest album is a frenzied masterpiece of mesmerizing motifs and genre play.
by Dan Forman
Arts | 2/5/08
Posted online at 11:41 PM EST on 2/4/08
Listen to the new Mars Volta album at your own risk, for there is a curse that is intertwined in its very composition, a hex that is responsible for the strange and terrible coincidences that took place during the album's creation. Drummer Deantoni Parks resigned mid-tour, leaving the band with financial troubles; lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala required knee surgery due to an injury caused by the shoes he had been wearing; audio tracks disappeared; guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez's home studio flooded; and the album's original engineer suffered a nervous breakdown. According to the band, the curse's culprit is a Ouija board the members purchased in Jerusalem, a toy they played with before every show during their 2006 tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Dubbed "Soothsayer," the board revealed stories, gave names and made demands as the band was contacted by three different entities who appeared in the form of one and whom the band referred to as "Goliath." The band soon began to make a connection between its interaction with the board and the above incidents.
The Mars Volta had a difficult time makeing The Bedlam in Goliath. This is not, however, only due to the series of abominable mishaps mentioned above. It is a highly complex, raucous act of forceful rhythm and estranged ambient noise that creeps and seeps into the listener's aural atmosphere. That said, Bedlam is slightly more musically coherent than some of the Volta's previous albums, such as 2006's Amputechture and 2005's Frances the Mute. Although in this album the band is clearly experimenting with deeply intricate layers of unsettling, abnormal ambient sound samples, Bedlam is more similar to 2003's De-loused in the Comatorium in that each song maintains its core musical train of thought, whether it be funk, classic rock or punk, throughout its entirety. These three genres permeate the new album and the Mars Volta's genius lies in the way the band inventively weaves these forms into their characteristic prog-rock framework.
The Mars Volta had a difficult time makeing The Bedlam in Goliath. This is not, however, only due to the series of abominable mishaps mentioned above. It is a highly complex, raucous act of forceful rhythm and estranged ambient noise that creeps and seeps into the listener's aural atmosphere. That said, Bedlam is slightly more musically coherent than some of the Volta's previous albums, such as 2006's Amputechture and 2005's Frances the Mute. Although in this album the band is clearly experimenting with deeply intricate layers of unsettling, abnormal ambient sound samples, Bedlam is more similar to 2003's De-loused in the Comatorium in that each song maintains its core musical train of thought, whether it be funk, classic rock or punk, throughout its entirety. These three genres permeate the new album and the Mars Volta's genius lies in the way the band inventively weaves these forms into their characteristic prog-rock framework.
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