THE WIDOW

Perhaps it is stupid to add singles but very well. This is a good EP. You get to here the outtake title track that would have been the first track on the album I think. It's very good. The avant garde clanging sounds at the begining go on a bit too long but there is some great "Red" era Fripp style guitarring here. Well worth the £2 or so that it cost. I have the vinyl, single and dvd-s of this and its a good set.

A nice touch is that they but the A-sides on the B-side and the new unreleased track as the A-side for some reason. This is also true of "Intertiatic ESP" and "L'Via L'Viaquez". "The Widow" here is shortened to cut off the trippy end bits for a radio edit. 2 good tracks a pound each. Can't complain. "Frances the Mute" has to be one of the longest A-sides ever yet SUPER FURRY ANIMALS released a 22 minute single.

I give this record 4 stars because everyone who enjoyed the Frances the Mute album should also hear the outtake title track. The song is exactly what you would expect from the Frances the Mute album. When the song rocks, it rocks good. However, it falls victim to the same pitfalls as the rest of the songs on the LP: too much annoying pretentious gobbeldy-gook noise. The track 'Frances the Mute' starts in with about 3 or 4 minutes of what sounds like a wrench banging on pipes. This noise is constant and does not stop or change, but eventually becomes extremely annoying. When the track finally gets going, it is incredible, and rocks with the same intensity as "Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus" and "L'via L'viaquez". There are amazing riffs and intense changes. It is truly a prog epic, with the actual music part clocking in at over 10 minutes and consisting of several parts. On another light note, the version of "the Widow" on side B is devoid of all the pretentious noisy gunk that was tacked on to that track on the LP, making that song just a bit more enjoyable. Anyone who enjoys TMV's music should find this single agreeable.

I am a huge huge huge TMV fan. Frances, I believe, is an undeniable masterpiece, and De- loused is also very strong. This single does not disappoint. Frances the Mute, the song, is typical TMV, but it has more of a loose De-loused feel. Not that this is a bad thing. Frances the Mute, the album the song was originally intended for, is intrinsically more structured then its predecessor, so it would have had more of a De-loused sound.

The Widow has been edited to cut out that ending 2-3 minutes of noise. It's the same song that us TMV fans came to know and love, and the ending noises edited out makes more sense here. IMO, the noise is needed for the album, but the song on its own doesn't need it.

Overall, it's a strong single. It gives a good glimpse into the song whose lyrics appear in the Frances album, but with no song present on said album. TMV fan? Get it. Not one? Eh. 3/5 stars.

Buy it on a bargain market because of the cover. Then looked again - holy god, this is VOLTA! And this is excellent addition to any TMV's fan collection! Actually I prefer this single to the album, because it has the two best songs related to "Frances..." - the name-sake epic (unfortunately an outtake) and "The Widow", wonderful urban blues in a concise listenable version. Highly recommended!

Four stars, and two stars. Four stars for 'Frances the Mute' in the context of THE MARS VOLTA'S discography. It's the Rosetta Stone to the album of the same name, the key to understanding the strange, awkward concept underlying the otherworldly sounds of that album. But two stars for the music itself: 'The Widow' is great, but is only one short track, and 'Frances The Mute' seems somewhat pointless on its own. So I'll compromise at three stars.

In Frances the Mute fashion, the title track of an album it didn't even appear on begins with atonal noises, this time a distant clattering. For four-and-a-half minutes this goes on (remember "Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore"), but when the actual music comes in, it is The Mars Volta people can immediately recognize. It is amazing that this group can take a relatively simple chord progression and smother it in rock and experimentation such that it becomes far more complicated sounding than it really is. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez fires off a brilliant little guitar solo, and Cedric Bixler-Zavala is as dynamic as he is on the studio album. Later, the piece involves forlorn acoustic guitar and soft singing, occasionally gripped by devilish, throaty effects. After another bout of heaviness, the piece concludes with spacey growls and the strummed theme of an album this excellent song was, for whatever reason, rejected from. What is funny to me is that if The Mars Volta had cut out all of the experimental gunk from the album, this dirty gem would have had a proper home, but for some reason, I find it all the more appealing that it was cast aside in this manner, like a shameful treasure. "The Widow" is edited, which essentially means only the song proper is present (the sonic experimentation that is unpleasant for some- and understandably so- is cut off at the end). It's worth mentioning that this edited version has a twisted, sick music video.