FRANCES THE MUTE

This is a good, but not great secound album from The Mars Volta. De-Loused was close to perfect, but this one is not. The sound here is caotic, as it should be. But lenghty sound effect passages, where nothing much happens ruins the flow of the album. It seems like they serve for no other purposes, but to be artistic. That beeing said, I find this album quite enjoyable. Cedric Bixler Savala has a great voice, and Omar A Rodriguez Lopez`s guitar play is astonishing. Without the mentioned sound effect passages I would have given this a 4 star rating. The Mars Volta is certainly one of the most original sounding progressive bands today, and this is a solid piece of work. I am definetly looking forward to be hearing more form them in the future.