The Bedlam in Goliath
| The Bedlam in Goliath | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by The Mars Volta | ||||
| Released | January 29, 2008 | |||
| Recorded | 2006–2007 at Ocean Way Recording, Hollywood, California and Rodriguez-Lopez's home studio in Brooklyn, New York | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 75:52 | |||
| Label | Universal Motown Records, Gold Standard Laboratories | |||
| Producer | Omar Rodríguez-López | |||
| The Mars Volta chronology | ||||
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| Singles from The Bedlam in Goliath | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | (66/100) |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AbsolutePunk | 85% |
| Allmusic |   |
| The A.V. Club | C- |
| Drowned in Sound | (8/10) |
| Entertainment Weekly | B |
| NME | (8/10) |
| Pitchfork Media | (4.3/10) |
| PopMatters |   |
| Rolling Stone |  |
| Spin | (4/10) |
The Bedlam in Goliath is the fourth studio album by the American progressive rock band The Mars Volta, released on January 29, 2008 on Gold Standard Laboratories and Universal Motown Records. Produced by guitarist and songwriter Omar Rodríguez-López, the album's creation was subject to "bad luck controversy" after an experience with a ouija that Rodriguez-Lopez bought as a gift for vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala. The album is the first to feature drummer Thomas Pridgen, and the last to include both guitarist and sound manipulator Paul Hinojos, and wind multi-instrumentalist Adrián Terrazas-González.
The album debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200, becoming the band's highest charting release after selling over 54,000 copies in its opening week. "Wax Simulacra" was released on November 19, 2007 as the album's first single, coupled with a cover version of "Pulled to Bits", originally by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Vinyl editions of the album include a ouija inside the gatefold, claimed to be the band's own take on the board they previously owned. "Wax Simulacra" won at the 51st Grammy Awards for Best Hard Rock Performance.
Having previously contributed the artwork to the 2006 release of Amputechture, Jeff Jordan was again brought in to handle the illustrations for the album, creating 11 original paintings to coincide with the theme of The Bedlam in Goliath, as well as including a piece from his own gallery. The piece used for the cover is entitled "Agadez".
On a trip in Jerusalem, Rodriguez-Lopez purchased an archaic ouija-type talking board at a curio shop as a gift for Bixler-Zavala. They would return to their tour bus after shows to play with it during their 2006 tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as it quickly became the band's post-show ritual. Dubbed "The Soothsayer", the board revealed stories, gave names and made demands, as the band was contacted by three different people who appeared in the form of one, who was then referred to as "Goliath". The more the band interacted with "The Soothsayer", otherworldly coincidences began plaguing the band's experience writing and recording The Bedlam in Goliath: Blake Fleming, their drummer at the time, quit mid-tour and left the band with financial troubles; Bixler-Zavala wound up needing surgery performed on his foot due to the shoes he had been wearing, forcing him to relearn how to walk post-surgery; audio tracks sporadically disappeared from the studio's harddrives; Rodriguez-Lopez's home studio flooded and was subject to multiple power outages; and the album's original engineer went through a nervous breakdown, leaving behind all previous work with no notes as to where anything was. The engineer who quit stated to Rodriguez-Lopez: "I'm not going to help you make this record. You're trying to do something very bad with this record, you're trying to make me crazy and you're trying to make people crazy."
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