FRANCES THE MUTE

The Mars Volta improved on their sound for this, their second album. They still are masters of the high speed, hard rocking prog sound, but they have added a lot more experimentation to their repertoire. With spacy sound effects and odd noised for extended segments, they are now more akin to Pink Floyd (in a good way). And some of the jazzy jams (in Plant A Nail In The Navel Stream and continuing to Faminepulse) conjure up a harder rocking Soft Machine. Adrian Terrazas plays a mean be-bop sax solo that was quite unexpected.

While I enjoyed De-Loused In The Comatorium, it was this album that really made me a fan of the band.