The Apparatus

 

The Mars Volta is set to release their new album, a Ouija-board-misfortune concept piece called 'The Bedlam In Goliath' on January 29th, 2008. The album is about a strange Ouija board that guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez bought while on an excursion to Israel. He gave the gift to vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and the board, which the band dubbed The Soothsayer, caused some bad things to happen.

Contents:

• Track Listing
• Artwork Info
  
• Album Story
  
• Tour Dates
• Videos
  

Read this official report from TMV updated biography for enticing details on this opus:

Back up to the last big tour. The Volta and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are tearing venues in half, retreating to their busses, rolling through the night. But instead of the normal Rock God routines the guys are sitting around Cedric's new Ouija board, which they've dubbed the Soothsayer. And they love it— it's the new post-show addiction.
The Soothsayer offers them names: Goliath, Mr. Mugs, Patience Worth, Tourniquet Man.
The Soothsayer offers them a story: It's always about a man, a woman, and her mother. About the lust floating between them. About seduction and infidelity. And pain. And eventually, murder. Entrails and absence and curses and oblivion. Exactly the kind of spooky shit you'd want from your Ouija.
Now here comes the rub.
The Soothsayer starts asking the band what they have to offer. This connection that's set up runs both ways, and the invisible voices begin to speak of their appetites.
They threaten oblivion and dissolution, or offer it as seduction. The voices merge as Goliath, a metaphysical quagmire and unfed saint whose hunger to return to the real world grows more urgent with each connection.
There are proper ways to close this union, but The Mars Volta have never been anything if not adventurous. They stay in contact— even taking phrases from the board and inserting them as song lyrics— but never offer themselves as surrogates. And so the starving Goliath extends its influence.
Inexplicable equipment issues abound while on tour.
Conflict with the existing drummer escalates and results in a change of guard. Ritual gives way to injury and Cedric is laid low by a randomly (and severely) gimped foot.
A completely reliable engineer’s mental composure cracks, pushing him from the project. The tracks he leaves behind are desperately tangled.
Omar's music studio floods, threatening to send him right over the same precipice as the engineer.
Long-term album delays hit and people aren’t sleeping well.
Nonsensical words and phrases the board had previously spoken begin to pop up in things like documentaries about mass suicide.
The Soothsayer keeps telling the same story but the details are becoming more brutal.
One day the label on the board peels back revealing pre-Aramaic lingo written across weird cone shapes.
It's bad mojo writ large, and things are crumbling quickly.
Worst of all, the board has shifted from pleas to demands.
To threats.
So they buried the fucking thing.
There are many ways to close a spiritual connection. Wear white for a whole year. Surround yourself with salt. Close a board and ask someone else to open it, thus transferring the ownership. Break the board into seven pieces and sprinkle it with holy water. Or bury it.
Omar wrapped the Soothsayer in cloth and found a proper place for it in the soil. Cedric asked that he never be made aware of its location.
And then their album found a new, more urgent purpose.
The Bedlam in Goliath is here to consecrate the grounds where the Soothsayer lies in wait. It's metaphor vs. metaphysics. Its story will be told to you and I, Lucky Listener, and we’re the ones re-opening the board. Taking on the ownership.

It sounds pretty enticing and spooky at the same time. I love how all of TMV's albums are steeped in creepy personal experiences that the band has. Their music is given a very ethereal flavor, and it doesn't hurt that all the musicians involved are technically superior. This band seems to keep getting better and better with each release. I managed to hear a few tracks that leaked from the studio and they are nothing short of stunning. Here's hoping that the newest album will continue to propel this band to the forefront of modern progressive rock.

The band will be touring in January of 2008 to promote this album. Here are some dates to start:

January 9 – Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
January 11 – New Haven, CT @ Toad’s Place
January 12 – Providence, RI @ Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel
January 14 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5
January 17 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore at the TLA
January 18 – Baltimore, MD @ Rams Head Live
January 19 – Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
January 21 – Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Hall
January 23 – Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall
January 25 – Kansas City, MO @ Beaumont Club
January 27 – Boulder, CO @ Fox Theatre

Hope they come around FL soon. Their live shows are getting legendary.

Here are new videos from their website (Warning: High-speed connection required):

 

"Wax Simulacra"


"Aberinkula"


"Goliath"


"Askepios"


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