Chimpomatic

The Mars Volta

The Bedlam in Goliath

Whatever your views on the current state of the music industry, the very existence of The Mars Volta is proof-solid that something must be going right. This is a band with a manifesto so far outside of the mainstream and so removed from what's currently hip, that it's some kind of miracle that they even get to record, let alone tour, release lavishly packaged albums and sell a million records.

If you've never checked them out, this is their fourth full-length album and it adheres to their highly individual sound - there's no getting away from it - this is progressive rock. A musical form so utterly derided by the music press, and dismissed by the majority of listeners under the age of 40, that one might think that no-one would ever attempt to fly a Roger Dean flagpole up their mast ever again. And with good reason:- progressive rock from the 70's was predominantly British, a bit public school and generally a turgid plod through some half-arsed attempts at musical originality. Thankfully, the only real musical heritage from this era is the influence of King Crimson at their most densely harrowing. What the Mars Volta have is energy and pace - and the new album is demonically charged, travelling over jumpy time signatures with an unstoppable drive. I have heard them described as prog-punk - a tag so oxymoronic that I laughed when I heard it, and yet it is a punk attitude which gives the prog such a maniacal thrust.

This is a stronger album than last year's (also excellent) Amputechture by dint of the fact that it delivers more bite-sized nuggets of Volta madness in smaller digestible chunks. It's quite riff heavy, and generally played at a breakneck pace. New permament drummer Thomas Pridgen has his work cut out for him, and sounds like he's enjoying every sweaty minute of it. There's a lot of voice processing applied to Cedric Bixler-Zavala's voice, which could easily scare off the faint-hearted. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez's guitar playing burns red-hot, and where the band hit some big latino vamps for him to work-out over, he comes across like Frank Zappa rather than Carlos Santana.

Intense, spooky and totally mental. UK Live shows coming up in March.