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Review: The Mars Volta’s “The Bedlam in Goliath”

February 04, 2008 9:39 AM

Sometimes good technical musicianship is not what you need to make a good record.  Sometimes a band’s musical structures can be too complicated and convoluted for its own good.  Sometimes impulses need to be harnessed and brought to a head in favor of some sense of structure and coherent sensibility.

The Mars Volta is an experimental band that formed out of the ashes of the somewhat respected ‘90s  band At the Drive-In.  Since forming, it has released several difficult albums with some likable moments.  What makes its  sound most difficult is its prog-rock aesthetic and tendency to constantly shift tempos and keys.  To add to the mess, lead singer Cedric Bixler Zavala has a high, nasally voice that careens in all directions.  He screams like a howler monkey while instrumentation runs amok behind him.  The end result at its worst sounds not unlike a Latin-tinged answer to Rush, mixed with metallic influences like System of a Down, mixed with some of the most challenging free jazz you can imagine.  For a few minutes, this can be interesting.  For an hour and 15 minutes, it’ll drive you so bonkers that you’ll want to tear your ears clean off the sides of your head to make the noise stop. 

The band’s previous records had some satisfying songs that  were accessible enough to grip you.  The  album “De-Loused in the Comatorium” had the song “Televators,” whereas a few years later the band had a hit with “The Widow” from its album “Frances the Mute.”

“The Bedlam in Goliath,” on the other hand, is simply a hopeless mess.  It’s a deafening cacophony.  Sometimes it sounds like two or three songs are being played over each other, which just creates a set-up for audio madness.  Attempts to be innovative just end up sounding punishingly awful.  When you think it can’t get more annoying, it proves you wrong time and time again getting worse and worse each time.  There are moments when you think something remotely enjoyable is just around the corner, only to have your hopes dashed at the last moment.  Passages of “Ilyena” almost make the cut, but then Bixler Zavala’s voice goes way off key and you wonder whether the record executives are sitting in their offices laughing at what tuneless garbage they’ve churned out to the unsuspecting masses.

The Mars Volta are obviously very good musicians.  Technically speaking, this is a surprisingly complex record, but with many tracks topping the seven-, eight- and nine-minute marks, and with the band’s loose “song” structures, it just winds up sounding like well-versed stoners noodling around in the band’s parents’ garage.  It’s noise.  Not the good kind, either.

Not even the presence of Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante can save this.  In recent years, Frusciante has proven to be an excellent guitarist, even while his main band has slowly mellowed into a shadow of what he once was, but here, his ax just adds another layer to sift through. 

But the worst part is what has happened with Bixler Zavala’s voice.  On earlier albums, his voice could easily be considered an asset.  Its high timbre and range could be quite beautiful in more subtle surroundings.  Here, he often sings in his upper register.    His voice is high to begin with, so putting it into overdrive could put every mirror near your stereo in danger. Listen to the album’s opener, “Aberinkula,” and see whether you can make it past the 30-second mark.  To make things worse or more “challenging,” a few times his voice has electronic effects over it -- because I guess it wasn’t difficult enough to handle before.  The goal is to obviously throw as much in as possible in the name of musical complexity.  Such a move, if successful and enjoyable, would be worthy of praise, but in this case, it has failed royally.

There’s also something highly pretentious about the Mars Volta’s choice of imagery and song titles.  Calling a song “Soothsayer” and then screaming over a wall of aimless guitar squall (and a string section) doesn’t make things very clear, even if it does fade into what sounds like an ill-fitting church  choir. Song titles and lyrics don’t get much more cryptic than this.  I can’t imagine a sticker on the cover highlighting the presence of a track called “Conjugal Burns.” “Metatron” and “Wax Simulacra” are some other puzzling titles.  It’s as if the band was thinking, “How can we make this more difficult for our listeners?  Can we make this so difficult that we fool the critics into giving us good review for being ‘artsy?’”  I, for one, will not be fooled.   

The album was produced by group co-leader Omar Rodriguez Lopez.  Perhaps he felt he needed to produce the record to get his band’s “vision” across.  Considering “De-Loused in the Comatorium” was produced by Rick Rubin, the band really should’ve given him a call.  Perhaps with it created an unholy, sonically abrasive, unforgivingly cryptic record.  It makes other like-minded more-accessible prog-rock bands like Coheed and Cambria sound like easily digestible three-chord punk in comparison.  That would indeed be preferable.  Less is indeed more. 

But hey, “The Bedlam in Goliath” will give your proverbial little cousin -- let’s call him Stevie for argument’s sake -- something to blast while he plays “Dungeons and Dragons” in his parents’ basement.  It is a record that should annoy parents -- and frankly, people who enjoy really GOOD, loud rock music -- for years to come.  Maybe next time the Mars Volta will keep its experimental spirit without losing its sense of clarity. 

There aren’t enough outside stimulants in the world to make this record good.  Now I have a headache!

February 4, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (6)

User Comments

i dont know know at what what point a band goes from being groundbreaking to just being completeley disconnected with the listener. I think these guys are talented and progressive but im sure all those people raving about them since at the drive in days has gone to their head just a little ya think? I mean they literally have been called the saviors of rock by rolling stone at one point. I loved their 1st album, liked their second and by their third album I wanted my 14 dollars back. Im all for them dancing the line on progressive music and experimentation but just not on my dime and more importantly, not expecting me to sit and listen to what amounts to a self serving jam session. they dont owe the fans anything but in the same turn nor do the fans owe them anything so please stop playing music and expecting us to feel like "we dont get it" when it is just so disconnected. - a mars volta fan

Posted by: mooseboy | Feb 4, 2008 4:46:52 PM

Saw them on the Henry Rollins show. Did not feel it at all. Thought I might just be naive as to what "good" is. Glad to read your review and confirm my thoughts...

Posted by: Rob | Feb 4, 2008 8:32:05 PM

I wholly agree with the review and the comments below. If you asked me what my favorite current band was 4 or 5 years ago, The Mars Volta would have been one of the first answers to come to mind. Today, I can only wonder what went wrong, and whether we'll ever get anything like the old Mars Volta back. I used to religiously attend Mars Volta shows back then, but this year I had tickets to their New Years Eve show in SF, and I ended up just bailing on it. I didn't even try to sell the tickets. The last few shows, while they were certainly spectacular, skillful, and loud, were just frustrating to listen to, and I really felt little connection. My ideal set would be something like their Electric Ballroom performance, of which there is a video. These days, it seems like staying home and watching that video is the best you're going to get from them when it comes to "live performances." Too bad.

I hope not too many people, out of blind loyalty, went out and bought the new album like I did. I know they aren't about compromising, and that's good, but I hope just maybe they might realize that some of their faithful fans are starting to feel like they're off their rocker. Sad thing is, I feel like they're picking up new fans who are into the cacophony and increasingly occult references, if for no other reason than to stick it to mom and dad.

Posted by: Cooper | Feb 5, 2008 3:03:00 AM

This is a disengenuous review. You can almost hear "how can I find a slant to tear this down" between the lines. If this isn't to your taste, it just isn't. When did anyone look to a corporate Goliath to appreciate or interpret avant garde art? TBIG is a groundbreaking collection of songs with more beautiful moments in half of the collection than you could expect from most artists in an entire career. Challenging? Yes. Overwhelming at times? Yes. Perhaps their main fault is being overly generous. Best digested in parts, the Goliath in Bedlam is an ambitious, brave and thrilling collection that, in fact, sets a new standard for hard rock that Led Zeppelin will be hard pressed to match if they record a new album.

It would be more informative to those whose interest is piqued to read the reviews on iTunes, and you will quickly see this negative voice is definitely a minority report. The cover of Nick Drake's Things Behind the Sun is itself worth the price of admission. This is not music for juveniles (of any age) pre-occupied with anything other than good music.

Posted by: Ron | Feb 11, 2008 11:44:13 AM

TMrV music is not for everybody definitively. Either you love them or hate them and this review proves exactly that, although a bit biased IMO. But to each it's own.

Posted by: Twist | Mar 8, 2008 5:10:04 PM

1st of all, arguing about music is pointless. It is ultimately left up to the listeners opinion. Personally, I have all of TMV's albums and have seen them live. They played for 3 hours and did not stop, and it was the most energetic performance I have ever seen. This review is from ABC news website, and not Rolling Stone, AP, or any other respectable music magazine. I really think that people who truly enjoy music would read reviews in publications that deal with mainly music, and not ABCnews.com. Seriously.

Posted by: musicisopinion | Apr 22, 2008 2:41:10 AM

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