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The Mars Volta: The bedlam in Goliath
16/04/08 || The Duff
The Mars Volta seem to receive just as much praise as they do furious discontempt, and I’m guessing that the reasons for both the former and the latter are simply to do with the fact that they are a prog band. The musical excesses and flashy showmanship associated with prog rock always seem to draw in as many as they repel, and I’m finding a lot of the dissenters to be tarring these bands with the same brush, automatically associating the sub-genre with gross-pretentiousness without connecting with the music (a facet in which prog is incredibly textured) in the first place. Sure, all these bands tend to go out twin guns blazing without fail each and every time, but the scope of such projects usually demands nothing less, and so to be a fan of such stuff shouldn’t be something a listener feels the need to defend when the music is so rich.
This band here consists of some members from the disbanded At the Drive In, namely Omar Rodriguez Lopez and Cedric Bixler Zavala, and a collective of professional, exceptionally gifted musicians/previous fans of the band (and goodness knows who else), of all people including John Frusciante of Red Hot Chilli Peppers fame (without a doubt one of the world’s finest guitar players). I’m forever looking for breaks between death metal binges, and have always wanted to check up on this particular band as I heard they could get quite spaced out; recent collaborations with Mastodon enticed me all the more. “The Bedlam in Goliath” is the band’s fourth outing, and as much as my gut was telling me to go with the band’s debut and sophomore, nowadays considered classics, I reckoned I couldn’t fail with their latest that seemed to be getting a modest response along with the usual malicious backlash.
Apparently, this album is a culmination of all of the band’s works. I don’t know what that means as this is the first album of theirs I’ve heard, but I can also tell that “The Bedlam in Goliath” is a good mix of mellow and rocking. I’m not talking ballsy thrashing it out, but some of Mastodon’s attitude seems to have rubbed off on The Mars Volta a little, especially with the distorted guitar tone used in places. The spaced out moments are exactly what you would expect from prog, at times even reminding me of stoner bands like Kyuss and Down. Aside from that, as ambitious as this band has been rumored to be, I don’t reckon The Mars Volta to be pulling anything unexceptional out of the bag – just very regular music with nary an untoward characteristic. The one aspect that did take me aback were the vocals, as I figured they were a bit of a parody on Mastodon’s “Blood Mountain”; I’m finding that such is not the case at all (and may have even been toned down for said album), so if you don’t like castrato vocals, this ain’t for you. Otherwise, I believe that, due to Cedric’s interesting vocal melodies, the one-of-a-kind vocals flavour the album nicely.
I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t spent enough time with this, but the layers of music that I’m missing out on for now I don’t think are all too important, as they appear to mainly consist of weird GameBoy-like noises that, although may well bring something worthy to the overall project (surprise – this is a concept album; centers around Cedric’s unfortunate experiences with a Ouija board and getting raped in the ass by multiple spectres), I feel could equally warrant some of the criticism presently circulating the band. The music is of a grand nature (the drumming kicks all kinds of shit out of Brann Dailor, who I’m finding more and more repetitive these days, and the guitars boast variety, a worthy list of influences as well as some really unique sounds), and as a two-piece, these guys function very well – there is a great degree of chemistry going on here, even between the band and the non-permanent musicians who seem to be working on a “I was in the area and decided to drop by” basis. That said, The Mars Volta just generally seem to get too carried away with themselves, and the album really starts to drag – my opinion may change in a couple of weeks down the line, but for now I reckon twelve tracks (some breaking eight or nine minutes) is an exhausting affair that could have been very easily rectified were the band willing to part with some of its latest material, a lot of which comprises too little filling.
8 over-ambitious, very accomplished musicians out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 2008
- Label: Universal Records
- Website: www.themarsvolta.com
- Band
- Omar Rodriguez Lopez: music
- Cedrix Bixler Zavala: vocals
- Tracklist
- 01. Aberinkula
- 02. Metatron
- 03. Ilyena
- 04. Wax Simulacra
- 05. Goliath
- 06. Tourniquet man
- 07. Cavalettas
- 08. Agadez
- 09. Askepios
- 10.Ouroborous
- 11. Soothsayer
- 12. Conjugal Burns
