The Eerie Events That Inspired the Mars Volta's New Album Also Fuel a Frightening New Flash Game

When Omar Rodriguez-Lopez picked up an odd looking Ouija-type board from a curio shop in Israel, the Mars Volta guitarist probably should have known better than to take the dusty occult game on tour. Consulting the device on the road for a laugh after shows soon became a regular practice, as the band became absorbed in the object, which they dubbed the "Soothsayer." Then the obligatory bad luck started.

First the Volta drummer quit the tour, and eventually the band, over financial troubles. Singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala was the next victim. The shoes the vocalist had worn on tour ended up deforming his feet to the point they required surgery. Mysteriously erased recordings, a flooded home studio and a a long-time recording engineer partner's mental breakdown finally drove Omar to bury the Soothsayer.

In an interview with the Toronto Sun yesterday, Omar described his state of mind during his final drive to complete The Bedlam in Goliath, the band's fourth album, which is due January 29:

I was like a primate, I was like a person in the jungle eating raw animals. It was just survival. The only thing that mattered was finishing it. Nothing else mattered, getting sleep or eating right didn't matter. It was just a matter of finishing the record so the record could be out of my head and out of my life.

Well, now that the band's latest album is about to launch, and Omar's put some distance between himself and that odd curio, gamers can get a taste of the curse with a Flash game based on the band's experiences. Goliath the Soothsayer was created by designer Ben Leffler, who approached Rodriguez-Lopez with the idea. Leffler is the dark mind behind the Exmortis series of point-and-click horror stories, and his talent gleams grimly from beneath every darkened door, sinister clue reveal and wry Sam Raimi reference in this short, well-crafted homage to the new Volta album.