FRANCES THE MUTE

Upon purchasing (and consequently falling in love with) The Mars Volta's 1st full length album, I was naturally very excited for this album. I had dowloaded a leaked version of the Widow, and altough it was the single edit, it was enough to hold my appetite until March 1st. After rushing out to a CD store, I put the album in my player, sat down, and strapped in.

First off, I'll discuss the band and their contributions to the album. Musically, this is about 1.5 times more diverse than De-loused in my opinion. Where alot of songs on De- loused were connected (both literally and figurativly,) all five songs on Frances have their own flavor. TMV also seems to have completly eschewed conventional music this time around. While songs like the Widow and L' Via L'viaquez mostly stay in the countable area (soemthing that's farily important to me as a drummer,) Songs like Cygnus...Vismund Cyngus and the amazing Cassandra Gemmini have at least one moment of total improv freakout.

The band is a musical Juggernaut on theis record, with one of the tightest rythm sections around today, as well as one of, if not the most, skilled guitar player/composers in the band. Much of the album is just Omar noodling for extended periods, with the band, the strings and horns (yes, they brought in a string and horn section, as well as retuning Chili Peppers John Frusiante and Flea, as well as salsa ledgend Larry Harlow on piano). This brings up one of my major qualms of the album: Too much time os given to Omar and his noodling, and not enough to Ikey (kyeboards) or Larry. It would have been nice to hear a piano solo or something in the chaos that is Frances. Anyway, The vocals, one of the high points of the album, is basically Cedric giving us his best impersionation of Robert Plant on speed. There are numerous moments where he will just hits notes that left me in awe.

And now, to the real meat of the album. After the short acoustic intro that opens and closes the album, we are hit by one of TMV's trademark cresendos, and the wonderful Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus begins. How anyone can't like this song is beyond me. The song remains farily normal until it his about the 4 minute mark. Then, there is this amazing salsa-esque breakdown, followed by one of the many Guitar solos featured on Frances. The rythm section of the band is fully displayed here, showing why John Theodore and Juan Aladerte are one of my favorite rythm sections. After staying fairly quiet for ahwile, the band cresendos into the most sonically pleasing moments on the album. The reamaining 3 minutes are just a lo-fi recording of Omar's street, which segways into the Widow. Here, the musical ball is dropped a bit, as the song is good for the 1st 3 minutes, but the remaining 3 are just an out of key organ. Not very good.

The next song, L' via L' viaquez, is the third song, and quickly recovers any doubts you may have about the album. From the Frusiante solos into the rocking verses to the more ethereal salsa sections (featuring Larry Harlow), this is a great song, and is the catchiest song, even though you may have no idea what Cedric is sining about (on account of the spanish). The next song, Miranda, that Ghost just isn't Holy anymore, begins with 4 and a half minutes of frogs. This is the second qualms with this album: too many ambient passages that tend to drag. However, once Miranda gets started, A really great song. Cedric delivers one of his most passionate vocal performances, and Flea shows off his skills on trumpet. Then, after the song reprises the end of Cygnus, Cassandra Gemmini Hits you like a brick to the face.

Cassandra Gemini, the 32 minute track at the end, is one of the craziest, busiest songs ever created. It begins with some of the oddest time signatures the band has worked with, then plows through multiple time sigs like no one's business, until it literaly falls apart into one of two improv sections. It picks back up and plows though again, only to once again fall guiet and allow Cedric to mess with the human voice, followed by another improv section, and a great sax solo before going back to the chorus, and finally closing with the acoustic intro that opened the album.

In the end, The Mars Volta have produced a stunning progressive rock album, one that Il rank up with albums like Lateralus as masterpieces of the genre. While the album does have it faults, as any great work of art does, it is still very much worth the time of any proghead out there.