About 20 years ago, prog-rock died a deserved death. Humiliated by new wave and devoured by its own bloat, progressive bands like King Crimson and Yes faded into obscurity, scaled back to play for fundamentalists or slicked up their sounds to fit the current trends. Now, with enough time gone by to forgive and forget prog-rock's worst extremes, the style has made a comeback with gold-selling bands like The Mars Volta.
The band's eight (yes, eight) members spread out onstage at Baltimore's Rams Head Live Friday and immediately enveloped the entire venue with multiple layers of ambient noise before catapulting straight into fan-favorite "Roulette Dares," a track off their debut album, 2003's "De-Loused in the Comatorium."
The band focused primarily on material off its upcoming album, "The Bedlam in Goliath." Seven of the 12 songs performed over their nearly nonstop two-and-a-half hour set were from the new record. Songs like "Wax Simulacra," the album's first single, and "Conjugal Burns" were played with all the subtlety of a Revolutionary War cannon, leaving many dropped jaws in the wake. The band also included some of its older material, including its previous album's single "Viscera Eyes," and a wild jam version of "Cygnus ... Vismund Cygnus" from the band's second album, 2005's "Frances the Mute." Every song packed a chaotic atmosphere of dizzying guitar solos, high-frequency vocal melodies, bombastic drum and percussion rhythms, outbursts of distorted saxophone and sweeping synthesizers that could make a tightrope walker suffer from vertigo.
For a long time after The Mars Volta finished playing, the crowd remained stunned. But that isn't at all surprising when you consider the unfathomable rock exhibition the band put on. After the music stopped, vocalist/lyricist Cedric Bixler-Zavala thought it wise to entirely disassemble the drum set and heave cymbals, an electric fan and a mug of hot tea (that burned my stomach) into the crowd during an elongated finale version of "Aberinkula," the first track off "Bedlam." During the melee, bandleader/composer/guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez hurled his guitar 15 feet into the air and walked away from the crash, either in triumph or frustration, and drummer Thomas Pridgen left the stage shirtless, having lost what appeared to be a quarter of his weight in water. There were practically no breaks in the action and there was no encore. There was no need.
"The Bedlam in Goliath," the band's fourth studio album, is the follow-up to 2006's "Amputechture" and is scheduled to hit stores Tuesday. And, as you may have guessed, there is quite a disturbing tale behind it. According to the band's Web site, this record tells a story of murder and infidelity that the group discovered through a ouija-type talking board Rodriguez-Lopez brought back from Jerusalem. Through this board, dubbed "The Soothsayer," the band apparently connected with metaphysical voices that set out demands and haunted the band and its making of this record.
But don't be fooled by this tangled web of prog-nonsense. At this early stage of the game, it seems as though "The Bedlam in Goliath" may be their most straightforward album to date (which may not say a whole lot). Several tracks have leaked, including "Goliath," a seven-plus-minute frenzy with earthy guitar licks that could put Led Zeppelin's best to shame. With the new album on its way and many tour dates left to shock and inspire, it is clear there is still life on Mars.
