The Mars Volta - The Bedlam in Goliath

Universal
Published February 14, 2008  by Christine Leonard in Record Reviews

Continuing their unrelenting war on silence, The Mars Volta aspire to brave new heights on their fourth studio album. For The Bedlam in Goliath, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala have reinvented the thrash-metal wheel, stacking one mammoth track on top of another until their supersonic Tower of Babel threatens to collapse and destroy all who dare to behold its awesome power. Eschewing the soft versus loud dynamic that defined their previous efforts, Bedlam capitalizes on the band’s explicit knowledge of speed and volume, bringing the full brunt of both to bear. Though the band digs deep into their funk-rock inspiration (sometime collaborator John Frusciante weighs in with his guitar wizardry), the album’s true genesis is more closely tied to the mystical forces of the occult. A spirit named “Goliath” lends his name to the latest release (and the rollicking eight-minute title track). Conjured via a Ouija board purchased by Rodriguez-Lopez in Jerusalem, the spirit both inspired and contaminated the album’s recording process with its omnisciently malevolent presence. Computer crashes, studio floods and mental meltdowns plagued the production, but somehow the final product emerged unscathed, polished and damn-near-perfect down to the last thunderous, resonating guitar riff.



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