Mars Volta unleashes 'Bedlam'
Doug Graham/Collegio Editor in Chief
Issue date: 1/31/08 Section: After Hours
About halfway through my first listening session of The Mars Volta's new album, "The Bedlam in Goliath," opinion editor Rebecca Bauman shouted in, "Is that Avril Lavigne?"
Can't blame her. Lead singer Cedric Bixler Zuvala's distinctive wail is, well, unique to say the least. But it's also kind of awesome. Come to think of it, that's a good way to describe the whole band.
Although Rebecca and other first-time listeners may find this hard to believe, "Bedlam" is the most accessible of The Mars Volta's work - and probably the most satisfying, too.
From the explosive opening tracks "Aberinkula" and "Metatron" to the chugging metal of "Ouroboros," The Mars Volta's unholy Latin-metal-funk mash up has never been more electrifying.
Killer bass work complements the band's usual guitar insanity as composer/director Omar Rodriguez Lopez' songs build to apocalyptic crescendos.
I'd like to compliment individual players for their performances, but aside from Lopez and Zuvala, they're not listed in the usual manner with their instruments. No matter, they're all excellent.
John Frusciante, the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist credited here as a member of "The Mars Volta Group," brings his usual excellence to the album. Talk about a career renaissance - this guy's only gotten better with age.
And yet, while the album's music had me enraptured, I still have no idea what these songs are about. The great flaw of The Mars Volta has always been that they're too darn eccentric for their own good.
"I am legion said the pen," sings Zuvala, and I don't understand him, but I believe him. "Her seraph snout/and cruciform limp/I blame the shrouding/of a lesser man."
I'd need a dictionary, a Bible and a crackpipe to fully grasp those lyrics.
Until this album, The Mars Volta's music was often as hard to grasp as their words. Even on their stellar "Frances the Mute," the band included too many weird interludes - sound effects and random noises, breathing, that sort of thing - that were nothing but time wasters.
Here, only the murky "Soothsayer" flirts with musical impregnability. The other songs are so furious that whatever Zuvala's wailing doesn't much matter.
And as always, this twisted trip is worth a few dead ends. With "The Bedlam in Goliath," The Mars Volta has finally made an album in which listeners won't have to wade through much muck to get to the good stuff.
Can't blame her. Lead singer Cedric Bixler Zuvala's distinctive wail is, well, unique to say the least. But it's also kind of awesome. Come to think of it, that's a good way to describe the whole band.
Although Rebecca and other first-time listeners may find this hard to believe, "Bedlam" is the most accessible of The Mars Volta's work - and probably the most satisfying, too.
From the explosive opening tracks "Aberinkula" and "Metatron" to the chugging metal of "Ouroboros," The Mars Volta's unholy Latin-metal-funk mash up has never been more electrifying.
Killer bass work complements the band's usual guitar insanity as composer/director Omar Rodriguez Lopez' songs build to apocalyptic crescendos.
I'd like to compliment individual players for their performances, but aside from Lopez and Zuvala, they're not listed in the usual manner with their instruments. No matter, they're all excellent.
John Frusciante, the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist credited here as a member of "The Mars Volta Group," brings his usual excellence to the album. Talk about a career renaissance - this guy's only gotten better with age.
And yet, while the album's music had me enraptured, I still have no idea what these songs are about. The great flaw of The Mars Volta has always been that they're too darn eccentric for their own good.
"I am legion said the pen," sings Zuvala, and I don't understand him, but I believe him. "Her seraph snout/and cruciform limp/I blame the shrouding/of a lesser man."
I'd need a dictionary, a Bible and a crackpipe to fully grasp those lyrics.
Until this album, The Mars Volta's music was often as hard to grasp as their words. Even on their stellar "Frances the Mute," the band included too many weird interludes - sound effects and random noises, breathing, that sort of thing - that were nothing but time wasters.
Here, only the murky "Soothsayer" flirts with musical impregnability. The other songs are so furious that whatever Zuvala's wailing doesn't much matter.
And as always, this twisted trip is worth a few dead ends. With "The Bedlam in Goliath," The Mars Volta has finally made an album in which listeners won't have to wade through much muck to get to the good stuff.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Oyabe
posted 2/01/08 @ 9:55 AM CST
It's ZAVALA.....how is anyone supposed to take you seriously if you can't even get the lead singer's name right?
Doug Graham
posted 2/04/08 @ 3:36 PM CST
Yeouch! I knew someone was gonna grill me for this one. I referred the inside of the CD case when I typed the names, and because of the aged-looking font they used, the first "a" in "Zavala" appeared to me to be a "u. (Continued…)
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