As if The Mars Volta hadn’t proved themselves enough on their last album ‘De-Loused In The Crematorium’, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala have raised the bar again with their second full album ‘Frances The Mute’. It wouldn’t be trite to say that this is a definite future classic that will inspire generations of guitar bands to reach greater heights with their music in the same way that ‘Led Zeppelin II’ did thirty odd years ago.
It seems there is always an element of sadness involved with any TMV work, this time round their writing comes straight off the back of losing band mate Jeremy Ward. The album is loosely based on a diary Ward had found that he’d kept because he felt he had a lot in common with the author.
The album is essentially five songs or movements, with three of those movements divided up into smaller chunks. The opening part of the first song lasts over 13 minutes and is the perfect scene setter for this rock opera. Bixlers vocals soar over Rodriguez’s fantastically complex guitar work and the churning drum rhythms of Jon Theodore, before cascading down into a pulsating listless centre-piece that eventually rises up again in one uplifting crescendo.
We’re treated to classic rock with dashes of tex mex salsa, experimental production techniques, psychedelia, strings, brass and atmospherics before we even hit first single ‘The Widow’ a 5 minute island of what would normally be deemed as commercial suicide thanks to flutes and distorted vocals making up long sections. Fortunately the band pull it off but Fightstar please don’t try anything like this.
Closing sections ‘Miranda The Ghost That Just Isn’t Holy Anymore’ and ‘Cassandra Gemini’ feature everything from talking guitars to dirty saxophone jazz work outs and machine gun fire drumming, culminating in the folky simpleness of ‘Plant A Nail In The Naval Stream’.
This truly is a headphone masterpiece, an epic of proportions unmatched by virtually any contemporaries, maybe only …Trail of the Dead, but even then they sound like they’re joking compared to the Volta. There are only brief moments of silence if any between the tracks with each section segueing into the next amongst electronic pulsating noises and atmospherics making for an aural experience unlike anything else you’re likely to witness this side the known universe never mind The Mars Volta.
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