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The genesis of The Mars Volta’s new album The Bedlam in Goliath is one of the weirdest stories in the history of modern music, a tale of long-buried murder victims and their otherworldly influence, of strife and near collapse, of the long hard fight to push “the record that did not want to be born” out into the world. And I swear we’ll get to all of that in a second.

But right now, before we drag any new passengers on the Volta Express into the lunacy of The Bedlam in Goliath, we’ve got to bring them up to speed. And so I present “A Very Brief History of The Mars Volta”:

Back at the turn of the century guitarist/producer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and lyricist/vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala decided to form a musical partnership called The Mars Volta. They grabbed a few other intrepid musicians and recorded The Tremulant EP, which was incredible and weird and proved these guys were trailblazing far from the paths tread by their prior band, At the Drive-In.

Then they released De-Loused In The Comatorium, an astonishing album that served as both an elegy for and celebration of their friend Julio Venegas (as told through the fictional character Cerpin Taxt whose life-and-death travails are chronicled via the songs). The album was huge in terms of exposure, influence, and raw momentum.

Next came Frances the Mute, an album with a central plot, based, sadly, on the loss of another friend (this time fellow musician and bandmate Jeremy Ward). An equally bizarre and powerful album. For this record and the remainder since, Omar has produced solo, dropping some of the pop sheen that Rick Rubin brought to the first album in favor of more experimental textures and structures. If De-Loused… was a dark album, this thing is obsidian. And also inspiring. And majestic.

Most recently they released Amputechture, their first album with no central concept (aside from stretching the boundaries of their prior musical achievements). Omar worked as a director/conductor/visionary, writing all the music and providing motivation, while Cedric stretched his vocals and lyrics around multi-tiered songs about things like modern witch-burnings, cultural oppression, and madness. The soaring intensity of the single Viscera Eyes alone is worth the admission.

The tours supporting each of these albums have proven that The Mars Volta is an endlessly ambitious group intent on turning a standard concert into something transformative that can best be described as an aural blitzkrieg. Saul Williams, no slouch when it comes to rocking a stage, once joked that he rushed through his opening sets just so he could watch the Volta sooner.

Point Being: If you don’t have these albums, you need them. If you do have them then you know exactly what I’m talking about and you’re anticipating The Bedlam in Goliath more than any other record this year. And you know, as I do, that if the Volta comes to your town for a show that you have to be there or a little bit of your soul dies. That’s a science fact.

 

The genesis of The Mars Volta’s new album The Bedlam in Goliath is one of the weirdest stories in the history of modern music, a tale of long-buried murder victims and their otherworldly influence, of strife and near collapse, of the long hard fight to push “the record that did not want to be born” out into the world. And I swear we’ll get to all of that in a second.

But right now, before we drag any new passengers on the Volta Express into the lunacy of The Bedlam in Goliath, we’ve got to bring them up to speed. And so I present “A Very Brief History of The Mars Volta”:

Back at the turn of the century guitarist/producer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and lyricist/vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala decided to form a musical partnership called The Mars Volta. They grabbed a few other intrepid musicians and recorded The Tremulant EP, which was incredible and weird and proved these guys were trailblazing far from the paths tread by their prior band, At the Drive-In.

Then they released De-Loused In The Comatorium, an astonishing album that served as both an elegy for and celebration of their friend Julio Venegas (as told through the fictional character Cerpin Taxt whose life-and-death travails are chronicled via the songs). The album was huge in terms of exposure, influence, and raw momentum.

Next came Frances the Mute, an album with a central plot, based, sadly, on the loss of another friend (this time fellow musician and bandmate Jeremy Ward). An equally bizarre and powerful album. For this record and the remainder since, Omar has produced solo, dropping some of the pop sheen that Rick Rubin brought to the first album in favor of more experimental textures and structures. If De-Loused… was a dark album, this thing is obsidian. And also inspiring. And majestic.

Most recently they released Amputechture, their first album with no central concept (aside from stretching the boundaries of their prior musical achievements). Omar worked as a director/conductor/visionary, writing all the music and providing motivation, while Cedric stretched his vocals and lyrics around multi-tiered songs about things like modern witch-burnings, cultural oppression, and madness. The soaring intensity of the single Viscera Eyes alone is worth the admission.

The tours supporting each of these albums have proven that The Mars Volta is an endlessly ambitious group intent on turning a standard concert into something transformative that can best be described as an aural blitzkrieg. Saul Williams, no slouch when it comes to rocking a stage, once joked that he rushed through his opening sets just so he could watch the Volta sooner.

Point Being: If you don’t have these albums, you need them. If you do have them then you know exactly what I’m talking about and you’re anticipating The Bedlam in Goliath more than any other record this year. And you know, as I do, that if the Volta comes to your town for a show that you have to be there or a little bit of your soul dies. That’s a science fact.