The Mars Volta - The Bedlam in Goliath 3LP

**NOT FOR MAILORDER / WILL NOT SHIP** **Limited White, Gold, & Glow in the Dark Vinyl** It can't come as a surprise that the Mars Volta's fourth album opens with a bang -- sonic terrorism is one of the only things listeners can count on from the band -- but it's genuinely novel that The Bedlam in Goliath never lets go of its momentum, not even after a full hour's worth of unrelenting war on silence, the wrapping paper for a concept album about the power of the occult. On their first three proper albums, Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez played games of quiet-loud-quiet (or loud-quiet-loud), sneaking around stealthily for minutes at a time before detonating another blast of thrash metal riffing and piercing screams. The Bedlam in Goliath is simply loud-loud-loud, virtually every song played at maximum volume and tempo. But, in fact, instead of being wearisome or exhausting, it's an oddly refreshing album. The band gets closer to its roots in thrash and funk-metal than