The Mars Volta – Frances The Mute
(Universal)

“Progressive rock (”prog”) is an ambitious, eclectic, and often grandiose style of rock music… [seeking] to move away from the limitations of radio formatted rock and pop, and ‘progress’ rock to the point that it could achieve the sophistication of jazz or classical music.” — Wikipedia

I could start off this review by wasting paragraphs trying to encapsulate the sound of The Mars Volta, but I think the above definition does a good job of summing things up. The band combines elements of just about every form of music out there in a way that brings rock music to another level. Prog doesn’t have to be a dirty word.

As with most projects this ambitious, however, there are a variety of opinions on either side of the fence. The band’s second full-length album “Frances The Mute” has been heralded as a revolutionary record destined to change the current musical landscape. The album has also been slagged for being pretentious and unfocused, with some of the criticism no doubt indicating a rapid backlash to the hype surrounding the band. In situations such as this, you often need to look somewhere in between the extremes to find the truth.

For me, Frances The Mute is an impressive and interesting record, but it does not work on as many levels as their first album, De-loused In The Comatorium did. Frances may have a richer variety in sound and more genre-bending transitions but it seems to lack the overall listenability of De-loused. The truth is, before I heard De-loused In The Comatorium I was expecting it to be a very challenging and psychadelic record — which by most accounts it was — but the thing that surprised me was that almost every song still hooked me in some way. Sure, there were a few aimless jams in the middle of the album that went on a bit too long, but there was always a solid rhythm and an infectious energy holding it all together.

Now a couple of years later, The Mars Volta seem to have reached the point that I had originally expected them to be. There are some brilliant moments on this record, but their artistic vision has grown bloated and foggy to the point where it’s often difficult to see beyond the forced experimentalism apparent in their music.

As you may have heard, there are only 5 tracks on the album, most of which (in classic prog rock fashion) have several subdivisions and “movements” within them. The song titles are about as weird and cryptic as you can get, leaving little doubt as to the presence of drugs in the songwriting process.

The opening track “Cygnus… Vismund Cygnus” begins with probably the strongest musical section on the album, “Sarcophagi”. It hits hard and it shifts sonically in so many different directions that it will leave your head spinning. However, it doesn’t take long for the swirling clouds of sound collages and pot smoke to seep in soon after.

“The Widow” is really the only straightforward song on the album, clocking in at a concise 3 minutes (give or take 3 minutes for the denouement) making it the obvious choice for a radio single. Perhaps the closest comparison to this slower ballad-esque tune is “Televators” from De-Loused, and yet at times this song sounds like it is coming from a completely different band. Then again, this is true to prog rock form as well; all the legendary prog bands always had one accessible hit buried among the rest of the album.

On “L’Via L’Viaquez”, the band embraces its spanish and latin roots, a song that they recorded with legendary salsa pianist Larry Harlow (a personal hero of Omar’s). Surprisingly, this song has grown on me more than any of the others, even if it does feel like another attempt to do something different just for the sake of being different.

Cedric’s voice has always amazed me with its versatility, and once again there are a lot of cool vocal effects used throughout. Unfortunately, I find it tough to get past the fact that Cedric sounds more like a female than ever before. Seriously, just take a listen to some of the notes he is hitting and the way that his voice projects. It’s creepy. On “Pour Another Icepick” his raspy wail sounds like a bizarre alien melding of Janis Joplin and Madonna.

This time around the album’s true success rides on the shoulders of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and his dizzying guitar work. In some places he lets loose with some seriously bad ass guitar solos that he probably would have scoffed at back in his At The Drive-in days, but in other places he is layering eerie chords and disjointed melodies into hauntingly remarkable riffs.

The epic 30 minute final track “Cassandra Gemini” concludes with “Sarcophagi” once again, bringing the musical journey full circle. Clever artistic statement or just a fabricated attempt to bring cohesiveness to this jumble of musical styles? I can’t quite decide.

In the end I think there is not enough meat to this album to make it a timeless classic. While I cannot dispute the fact Frances The Mute is unique in many ways, this time around The Mars Volta have stretched themselves a little too far outside the realm of common sense for me to completely jump on board. It’s nice to know that someone’s out there pushing the boundaries, but for me this album is not quite the masterpiece I was hoping for.

Still, the dirt cheap retail price makes it really hard not to recommend this album to people. If you’re bored of music in general and want to broaden your horizons, you probably can’t do better than to pick up The Mars Volta’s Frances The Mute. — Sean

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