KEY POINTS:
Herald rating: * * * *
When the Mars Volta release a new album there's only two ways to look at it. For some it's simply a self-indulgent bunch of progressive rock twaddle and for converts it's another thrilling ride, preferably the more berserk and crazed the better.
The music that the band's core members Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (guitar/producer) and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (singer) create has always been divisive. In fact, the Mars Volta was founded on division when the pair's previous band, At the Drive In, split up because they wanted to create more challenging music far beyond the bounds of their hardcore roots.
And the band's fourth album, The Bedlam In Goliath, an incessant barrage of unhinged and psychotic musical and lyrical bedlam, will not disappoint either believers or naysayers.
Where previous albums like 2003 debut De-Loused In the Comatorium, 2005's Frances the Mute, and 2006's Amputechture had obvious loud-soft dynamics, Bedlam is a constant slab of sonic chaos and volume.
Right from the start of Bixler-Zavala's brain-rattling wail on album opener Aberinkula there is no reprieve from the scything guitars, squally saxophones, and a rhythm section that plays the deepest funk grooves with all the might of a metal band.
There's always a story behind the gestation of a Mars Volta album and in this case Bedlam was birthed, rather awkwardly by the sounds, under the sinister influence and directives of a ouija board Lopez bought in Jerusalem. So it's a spooky journey and along the way you'll meet the Tourniquet Man and a few filthy corpses in caskets.
The Mars Volta's funk and soul influence comes to the fore on Goliath and Ilyena, two of the album's highlights, and the latter is the most accessible song Rodriguez-Lopez has written since his At the Drive In days. But Bedlam also sees the band at its most torrid, especially the two nine-minute epics Cavalettas (an erratic and fractured uproar) and Soothsayer (a menacing Middle Eastern-influenced song with a niggling mix of discordant guitar and scratchy strings).
While it's not as wholly captivating as De-Loused or Frances, they have pushed musical boundaries further than they have before and it's up to you if you want to jump on the Mars Volta ouija board and ride it.
Label: Universal
Verdict: Fourth album makes you sick, jubilant and deranged. It's got to be good for you
