The Bedlam in Goliath

The Mars Volta

album cover

A Transmission from the "Other Side," in Scream-o-Vision

According to Mars Volta guitarist and songwriter Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, the spirit world deserves some credit for his band's fourth album, The Bedlam in Goliath. The story: Lopez found a Ouija board in a Jerusalem curio shop, and bought it for his bandmate, singer and lyricist Cedric Bixler-Zavala. On tour, the game they nicknamed The Soothsayer became part of the post-show relaxation routine, until the same characters began turning up night after night. Bixler-Zavala took notes, incorporating some of the messages into his book of lyrics. Rodriguez-Lopez describes what happened next as a "haunting"—a period of tumult and terror that impeded work on the album, and ended only when the terrified band buried the game board.

Even from the Mars Volta, one of the most imaginative forces in the progressive wing of rock, this origin tale seems preposterous, a desperate play for media attention. Until you hear the music. From the first jaw-dropping outburst, Bedlam could be what's playing as the unquiet dead plot revenge on the living. Scintillating and pulse-quickening, it's a distinctly different brand of troubled-kid psychodrama, more chilling than anything labeled "rock" that's surfaced in the new millennium. Its challenging, heaving rhythms are wound supertight, its dissonances have a slap-across-the-face stridency, and the vocals tear through the spectrum in scream-o-vision: At key moments Bixler-Zavala reaches into a wondrous falsetto to share a woman's fright, or multitracks his voice into a ghost choir whose harmonies are pitched in the key of existential dread.

Just as notable are the luminaries from Music Heaven haunting the periphery of suites like the eight-minute "Metatron." In the course of this one stupendous track, the Mars Volta credibly exhumes elements of the music of Frank Zappa (the hiccuping odd-meter hijinks), Charles Mingus (the prayer-meeting 6/8 gospel blues interlude), Charles Ives (the jarring polytonal collisions of guitar and organ), and Kurt Cobain (the sweet yet abrasive hooks). When the Mars Volta brings those spirits together to jam, the outcome is mind-bending and terrifying—a thrill ride with Satan at the wheel.

Genre: Rock
Released: 2008, Republic/Universal
Key Tracks: "Metatron," "Tourniquet Man," "Wax Simulcra"
Catalog Choice: Francis the Mute
Next Stop: Frank Zappa: Hot Rats
After That: Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral
Book Pages: 476–477

Buy this Recording

Comments:

#1 from Oskar Pinheiro, Lisbon, Portugal - 03/04/2009 11:18

A great sensation comes over me listening to the psychedelic voice of Cedric Bixler-Zavala. The guitar rifs are overwhelming thru out the album. Fast throat cutting drumbeats combined with the spoken voice makes this album worthy of toping most alternative/rock lists.

#2 from anonymous, california - 05/24/2009 11:04

well done review! a lot of people i know never liked this album but in my opinion it’s one of the most phenomenal things i’ve heard. i have rarely heard a heavier or more challenging record, the one-two opening punch of aberinkula and (the absolutely epic!) metatron are absolutely astounding, and tracks like cavalettas and soothsayer are downright terrifying in their abstract dissonance, especially the former.

one of my favorite moments is how askepios is decidedly perplexing and pointless for the first three-minutes, then, at the perfect time, slams into a jaw-droppingly brilliant, epic groove. just thinking about it gives me chills…

i love this album so much!!!

#3 from Alex, Chicago - 06/02/2010 3:57

As a Mars Volta fan, I’m a bit disappointed that this made the list as opposed to their better records. The addition of Pridgen just did not mesh well with the band, in my opinion, and Theodore was a better fit.
Tourniquet Man of all tracks! I cannot think of a redeeming quality of that song. I would take Vicarious Atonement over that any day, even if you took the irritating vocal effects off Cedric in the former. Which leads to the point that Amputecture is a much better record then Bedlam and is my choice for the album one should listen to. Much tighter song writing throughout(save for Wax which is quite succinct and punchy), and Meccamputecture is practically a treatise on how to use noise to create tension with subsequent pleasurable release. Bedlam was a bit too lather, rinse, repeat on that front, with Cavalettas’ attempt stale and impotent by comparison.
Even rejecting that, one could have defaulted to the popular choice of De-loused, though their sound was a bit immature then. Frances the Mute (misspelled Francis in the article) would be the more discerning choice, especially because it has much more to offer than Bedlam. Choosing The Bedlam in Goliath is just plain wrong.

1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die