Bedlam in Goliath. Freaking sick.

I've been so busy the past few days that I haven't even had time to listen to the new Mars Volta release. In my defense, I cannot listen to a new album partially; the first listen must include all tracks. Anyways, I had some reading to do so I decided to pop it in. Wow.The album is chock full of the sweet electro-funk for which the Volta is famous. In fact, it's sort of a return to their original sound. The album pretty much rocks for a solid 2 and a half hours. We'll talk about the run time later. But there's definitely less down time in this album. It's very active, you know, like the kind of album you get really involved in. It seems to me like a lot more went into the writing process this time. The layering and blending is very mature, and the sound is more focused than in Amputechture. Something odd occurred to me by about the sixth track. I realized that the album was still playing. The official running time is 2:24, but I swear - and this is why I always give the first listen a full one - it felt like 3 or 4 hours went by. I'm not going to argue with anyone who says The Mars Volta is "weird." If you're not into them, it's difficult to understand why anyone would be. But I would definitely recommend this album to anybody even remotely interested in prog rock.