FRANCES THE MUTE

One of my top five favorite albums ever! Frances the Mute begins gentle, quickly explodes with intense musical energy, and from then on it never stops. Prog in nearly every use of the word, Frances the Mute keeps things interesting as each song has it's own unique style. The bands varying influences shine....space rock in parts of "Cassandra Gemini," punk in "Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus," and salsa in "L'Via L'Viaquez." The experimental elements could be discarded, but "Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore"'s second half is well worth the wait of the four-minute frog introduction. The songs work well together, and the lyrics are amazing and memorable....but completely nonsensical. Omar's solos are fantastic, and the rest of the band is easily able to hold their own up to his skill. I cannot say enough about this album that would do it justice...the "unincluded" title track is another terrific tune, left off for God knows what reason (why didn't they cut out the ambience and included the title track?). Maybe because they knew that if they did that, they would have created the greatest album of all time. I sincerely believe that.