The Mars Volta: The Bedlam in Goliath

Label: UMGD

It sprawls, but you probably knew that already. Twelve songs here, beginning with Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s vocal contortions and working outwards, eventually splintering into walls of keyboard heroics, furious percussion and nimble riffs. The energy level never really subsides on this, the Mars Volta’s fourth album, though a few passages manipulate seemingly found sounds into something unsettling. Voices become nightmarish audio collages at the end of “Agadez”, while a sound not unlike cellular distortion opens and closes “Ouroboros”. When you’re crossing genre lines to the extent that this group does, at times there are stumbles – the opening of “Goliath” doesn’t sound quite as huge as it should, for instance. Nonetheless, few can pull off the sweeping, epic-yet-accessible moments that this band achieves when they’re at their peak. (Toby)