Review Summary: The ocean floor is hidden from your viewing lense
The Mars Volta's second LP is a curious affair. Sprawling, aggressive and multilayered, Frances The Mute is a hard beast to tame at first. While their debut, 'Deloused in The Comatorium' was a sonic post-hardcore space rock styled expedition, Frances The Mute is the result of such stunning excess it's hard to believe at first.
Reviews at the time were extremely positive, but has the group's sophomore attempt held up?
Birthed as the result of a diary the Band's original sound engineer discovered while working as a repo man, the album tells the disturbing warped tale of 'Vismund Cygnus' who goes searching for his mother, the titular Frances. Along the way he meets a few people, then everything goes to hell near the end. It's a confusing storyline, similar to the band's other concept records, not helped by vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala's often prose filled writing style. His vocal performance on the LP is debatably his best takes, especially on the surprisingly successful single 'The Widow' and the Latin fuelled 'L'Via L'Viaquez'. His high notes are often soaring and explosive, and when needs be, soothing and often disturbing, fitting the dense instrumental tracks. Speaking of the music, it can be a difficult part of the record to appreciate the first around. Omar RodrÃ*guez-López, acting as lead guitarist and producer, along with the rest of the band unleash every fibre of energy in their bodies into the playing here. Drum fills are heavy and fast, bass lines frantic and groovy and guitar riffs blaring and powerful. The group's descents into Latin, Jazz and Ambient are felt heavily on the album, with the extended samba-esque interlude on 'L'Via L'Viaquez' being a particularly lovely example.
While the music here is undeniably powerful and enjoyable, it does however eventually succumb to excess. Frances The Mute is a total of 5 tracks long and the shortest of them is The Widow, which hits 6 minutes. The longest, the incredibly over the top 'Cassandra Gemini' clocks in at 32. The rest of the tracks all break over 10 minutes each. A few tracks devolve into incessant noodling in places, though this, surprisingly, doesn't effect the pace of the album. Cassandra Gemini and L'Via L'Viaquez in particular never have a dull moment in the, and I commend the band for somehow making a half an hour long track somehow not a complete snooze fest.
One thing to note is the album's heavy focus on ambience. While Deloused in the Comatorium also featured some ambient sections, they were mainly subdued and a minute or two at most. Frances The Mute, like with everything else on the album takes it to the extreme and features uncomfortably lengthy ambient sections on certain tracks. Half of The Widow's runtime is dedicated to a dissonant heavy organ meltdown and 'Miranda, That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore' starts with a gentle drone piece which builds into a cacophony of animal cries.
The title track, left off the record due to time constraints but released as a standalone single contains 4 solid minutes of blaring and droning chimes and bells before the song begins proper. While the lengthy buildups helps keep the listener on their toes, the sheer volume and intensity of most of these ambient sections become more grating as the album chugs on. Opener 'Cygnus... Vismund Cygnus', ends with 3 minutes of speech presumably sampled from a film or TV program, car noises and a drone gradually getting louder and louder. It's a difficult listen at first, though since these sections only take up a few minutes of the record's near 80 minute runtime, it's forgivable.
Frances The Mute is a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. While just as energetic and powerful as their debut album, this LP is a step up on everything that they laid down there. Hugely excessive, but massively enjoyable and entertaining, Frances The Mute is a record for any fan of prog rock.
Standout tracks
The Widow
L'Via L'Viaquez
Cassandra Gemini
