Search - The Mars Volta :: The Bedlam in Goliath

Derek Z. (CashOverAss) from LAS VEGAS, NV
Reviewed on 7/20/2011...

Mars Volta is the Pink Floyd of the 2000's. And just like Pink Floyd, their albums will still be fantastic 20, 30 years from now. All of their albums are fantastic and not one is better than the other. Don't sleep on this.

If you already like The Mars Volta you may want to check out At The Drive-In as that band shares simliar artists.

Have you ever heard me scraping?

Linda C. Hanley | 01/10/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"During the press junket for The Mars Volta's fourth full-length, The Bedlam in Goliath, a synopsis written by author Jeremy Robert Johnson detailing the story behind the album appeared on the band's website. The gist of the story has been repeated countless times in review after review and article after article. But Johnson wrote it first and he wrote it best, so I'm not going to rehash it here. And it really doesn't matter- The Bedlam in Goliath would be awesome even if we had all been left in the dark about its subject matter.



TMV guitarist-producer-bandleader extraordinaire Omar Rodriguez-Lopez stated pre-TBIG that this album would have a very claustrophobic feel to it. It does, which is both a blessing and a curse. From the moment opener "Aberinkula" starts, it's obvious that TBIG is sonically much different from previous efforts, mostly because a few of these songs have something like 90 audio tracks apiece. There are moments, though, where this saturation really works: The way all of the instruments collapse in on themselves like a black hole towards the end of "Metatron" is a true thing of beauty.



Aside from "Metatron," there are several other highlights to be heard here. "Askepios" starts off sounding like a super-stoned army of bumblebees before breaking out into a full-on barnburner. "Ilyena," a funky tune with a bit lighter production, has a gorgeous bridge accented by soaring spaghetti-Western chords and new (now ex) drummer Thomas Pridgen's jaw-dropping touch. (Hear that bass drum work? That's a single pedal.) First single "Wax Simulacra" is quite possibly the coolest song on the record, and that's saying something; "Soothsayer" is eerie and majestic; and "Ouroborous" is full of scrubby guitar and breathtaking vocal melodies.



One song that might sound familiar to Volta fans is "Goliath," a louder, faster, reworked version of a Rodriguez-Lopez solo track titled "Rapid Fire Tollbooth." The first half of the song is great, but can't trump the original's laid-back, funky sexiness. Then things change. When the final chorus ends with a mighty organ swell and the end appears to be in sight, the volume drops, the drums and bass lock into a groove, and the whole thing explodes into the most bombastic boogie-breakdown Zeppelin never played. And the song is rescued. If it doesn't send shivers down your spine when frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala snarls, "I'm starting to feel a miscarriage comin' on," you should check yourself for a pulse. In "Soothsayer," Bixler-Zavala despondently proclaims, "My love becomes a mange." By the time this record is through you'll be bearing his plague and loving every claustrophobic minute of it."