3:52-5:02am

The Mars Volta The Bedlam in Goliath


Warped industrial megafunk. Intricate rhythms of doom and love or love and doom or something wicked this way coming. The rhythms are undeniably, unrelentingly complex and heavy. Ethereal guitars or feedback or manipulations of one sort or another occasionally flirt with the top of the soundscape and are then drawn back into the driving complexities. A Saxamaphone? What sick bastard put THAT THERE? I see. We're exploring sound textures. Drop out the bottom, go thicker funk...

This sounds like the Chili peppers with a new lead singer now. That is thick-ass funk. Slap yo momma funk. Shit. The Thumpasauras has returned in a Mexican hyphenated duo from somewhere that my brother warned me about. And what crazed maniac is laying down these bass drums? Unknown, but I shall look it up later. Where's he get off signing high like that? That's some crazy shit.

Now we seem headed for some bitches brew style funk, which is always a bit out there. Nope... Rage Against the Machine without the political message. Something about "never heard a man speak like this man before." I believe it. Blues Riffs? Over that? Back to thrashing!! This is the part of the Volta that I don't like. When they ram it home. But they gotta do what they gotta do i guess. I just turn the volume down. I know its against the spirit of the thing, but whatever. The rest of it is so good. I know the quiet bit comes up next, but I'm a cranky old man.

This spacey jam-out on keeping you as a favor is dope. Smooth it out but be strange. Futureghosts/Lovesounds? The Saxamaphone!!! Again! I heard you here before! Was there just a sax player hanging out round the way?

Speed it back up by paring it back down. Reestablish the brain-popping rhythm. Keep up the pace. Slowed down crazy high rhythms with a thundering backbeat. Man. I don't know how he gets this stuff into or out of his head, but it is wild. Just let yourself go over to the following the rhythms and the high-pitched seemingly-arrhythmic patterns (that almost always feel like they're traveling the wrong direction in time) and you'll feel the improbably mathematical genius of the Mars Volta. And now the lyrics seem so strange all of the time. Talk of sickness and obvious love under the surface. Wormholes. Time. Losing Control.Mystical. Fantastic. Unbelievable and awesome. In both senses.

And the unending technical precision!! The guitarwork is flat-out incredible. I couldn't tell you shit about shit other than what it looks like and what it sounds like when people play ridiculously intricate shit and when they don't. This album = When they do. "be your epidemic." SAXAMAPHONE RETURNS!!!! You can't slip that shit by me again!!

I can't even remember what happened at the beginning of the album. I feel like it has been three full albums already and I'm only just near th end of the 7th song. I don't know if my brain can handle th rest of this. We'll have to make a go of it. Damn.

Now a heavy bassline. Softer. That's good for the moment. If this were a concert, I'd be heading for the toilet. I'd simply have to. But I've got an ipod. So... Not that I'm literally shitting on this part, but I'm in the can because I'm treating this like a concert. If that's gross, fuck off. This music's perfect for it. We've got it getting a little funkier but grooved and blissed instead of hammering and pounding. Still ominously dark and foreboding, but with a slower feel. Now the evil's back in. That's the deal. That's either the Mars or the Volta, but that's what they do. Like Maryland does crab cakes and football.

Those lyrics are so slow over such a fast line. The comparison plays with the notion of time so very effectively. That's either the Volta or the Mars. Gotta be it. Different speeds for the same thing. Somehow fitting together. And then they ram it home. That's the The. I suppose. Makes them definite instead of indefinite. Silly articles.

Oh shit, a hook in your neck? Damn! What have you done for my appetite? Well, I think I might get some food in a bit. But I'm listening to some dope shit at the moment.

Really beautiful organ-like work. And then top-notch lead-solo guitar lines. Back to the beautiful organ-like and then back to hittin the rhythm hard, then strip it down, make it sparse and relayer. With a new pattern. a New voice effect that seems to make it sound like something is rattling on my damn desk. Creepy. Yeah. I rewound it and found it. Creepy! Kinda cool though.

The String Section? You, I did not anticipate. Perhaps I should have. Now a sort of spooky vamp int he background with a crazy-dizzy guitar in front. Now the strings are back. Wild. This track is fitting together well now. Good groove again. Now the evil peeks through. Take what's yours. We become bequeathed. Amp up the snare. Nice. Say the sooth, sir, say the sooth. I took a brief look at wikipedia earlier about this album.. all of the track names have crazy names like Ouroboros the self-eating serpent and the like. I noticed a couple, but I'll admit without the single reference point of "Wikipedia" as a place to start? I would not have known that all of them were. I would have assumed some were made up. Now, I didn't actually read all of them yet, but that was because I wanted to listen to the music first. I will then go back and read. She's calling me. Strings are mourning more. A brief respite. singing. A chorus? One more track to go.

Nice opening. Spookfunk. Crawling guitar Good pace to keep working at now. Crazyfast guitar now. Altered voices up high. Drop it out and back up to speed. Crazy Ending. Noise. SAXAMAPHONE!!!! YOU FUCK!

Seems to end in mid-run... aha! repeat. ouroboros.