FRANCES THE MUTE

While I think the Mars Volta is one of the most valuable new bands now-- in terms of musicianship, songwriting, and ***-kicking rock-- they really need to tone down on the arty electronic noises and hippie-style lyrics. At least "Televators" was understandable.

Aside from that, though, I love this CD, mostly because of "Cassandra Gemini". Strangely enough, the longest song on the CD has the least filler. The chorus is huge, the arrangement isn't perfect, but it's good, and the singing is fantastic as usual with the Mars Volta. Lyrics are just as weird as usual though, (orifice icicles hemorrhaged by combing her torso?) And there are only about 2 minutes that could've been cut out for me, as opposed to the other 4 tracks. That's one of the major gripes I have with "Frances the Mute". In "De-Loused In The Comatorium" there were no noticeable "ambient soundscapes" or whatever. Yet in this CD there are about 20 minutes of pointlessly unatmospheric electronic looping. I can hardly stand to listen to "Miranda" anymore because of the 4 minutes of nothing before it starts. After the first 3 minutes of "The Widow" I skip to "L'Via".

And then there's the lyrics: My my my nails peel back When the taxidermist ruined Goose stepped the freckling impatience All the brittle tombs Five hundred little q's I'm splitting hairs to match the faces ("Cygnus... Vismund Cygnus")

...what? I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. I actually like it better when they sing in Spanish, because I can't understand the wordy gibberish they spew in English. They have the opposite problem from "hardcore" bands, whose actual singing isn't understandable-- The Mars Volta's words are incomprehensible. The song that's least terrible in terms of lyrics here is "The Widow" because there are hardly any words. And there's still the bit about hearing through every pore, or something like that. That just doesn't make sense.

Aside from all this criticism, this is actually a very good CD. If you don't listen to the lyrics, and listen on a computer where you can easily skip the electronic crap. I'm giving this a 4, because almost no new bands are doing something like The Mars Volta. Get "De-Loused" first though.