Frances the Mute

Having heard the songs The Widow and L'Via L'Viaquez and having read some of the reviews here, I thought the album was going to boil down to those two songs and a load of unlistenable avant garde nonsense. Luckily I bought the CD (prefer to have a physical object to really focus the attention) and I can't stop listening to it. There are so many exhilarating moments, both vocal and instrumental, throughout the 70 minutes of this album. You have to give it your full attention, sit down with it and pay attention. It's magnificent! As a 42 year old it's been a long time since a record exhilarated me like new music used to do when I was 15 but this takes me right back. Discovered it 11 years late but who cares?

Well, with how diverse, complex and intriguing this album is, it's a little difficult to quite put into words what listening to it is like. Of course, it's nothing but positivity regarding each song. Although, you can barely call them all 'songs' since the vast majority link together to make for a listening experience that takes you through so many twists and turns. Guitars, fast paced, slow paced, bilingual and extraordinary lyrics; what else is there left to cover for The Mars Volta? If you've only heard The Widow and L'Via L'Viaquez, then I'd highly recommend you take careful consideration when buying this album. You may not get what you expect with the rest. That may be in a great way or a bad way. But if you like music that's a little 'out there', don't take another minute to buy it and find out what's in store.

Great album from the marvellous Mars Volta. Recommended.

Thanks for the cd.much appreciated. Excellent condition. Will buy in future. All the best

Great album, takes a couple of listens to appreciate (and a few more if you haven't heard TMV yet) but awesome atmosphere and tension and great musicianship all the way through. The concept is really interesting also. It's up there with 'Deloused' and personally I prefer this album.

Bring me more, need to purchase more like this. Great stuff.

I bought this album the year it came out, after having watched The Mars Volta and being completely blown away by their mesmerising and powerful live show. Many of the reviews here seem to assosciate The Mars Volta with Pink Floyd, Zeppelin etc but I find these comparisons not very useful in trying to get across a sense of The Mars Volta. In my opinion, such an enigmatic, and yet at the same time dramatic, band, do not really fully reward the listener who looks to drop the sound into musical categories. Listening to the Mars Volta's Frances The Mute, you might find their organic sound and some high pitched singing to be slightly alike a Zeppelin sound, but settle into it and, for example, listen to the weird structures of sound, the way the sounds are arranged around eachother, the way sounds and instruments emerge out of eachother, and you will begin to realise that this is a totally different experience, and that The Mars Volta are too amorphous (in the space of a song, let alone the album) to be pinned down. Might it help you to understand the album by me telling you that each time I give it a listen, I get totally different impressions from it? This is a beautiful and powerful album,yet perhaps challenging if one doesn't have the time and stamina-of-attention-span to appreciate such a dense piece of work. So, after this introduction about the difficulty of describing such an experimental and shifting album, I'll give some simpler impressions of the music: Some simpler suggestions: You might note that without Rick Rubin, Mars Volta have a 'rawer' and much more organic and loose approach, it feels like they are stretching out more and have been unconstrained- allowing themselves to express their freeform compositions with characteristic energy and intensities. Take, for example, Cassandra Gemini, a song that really takes the album into another dimension, with its intense and electrifying openings folding out into all sorts of strange shapes and decompositions, with Cedrics utterly haunting, powerful and variable voicings hinting at a strange ritual?experience?altered state? while dramatic moments appear and carry stuttered sounds into new forms. I highly recommend this song (in my opinion, it really shows Omar and Cedric's talents as composer and singer respectively) and the album as an experience willing to yield a huge variety of riches to the careful and appreciative listener. I hope you enjoy it.

ほんといい作品。こんなに刺激的で、プログレ並みに分数が長くても曲、構成にまとまりもあり、カーステにCD入れっぱなしでも飽きない音楽は久々。。。というか初めて？というくらい気に入っています。 こういう音楽を俺は待っていたんですよぉ 1stもかなり良いですが、こいつは王道とは言えない音楽にして名盤と言えるくらい素晴らしいものに昇華された奇跡的な作品です。というかマーズヴォルタの存在自体が奇跡(T.T)なのかもしれません。 「ゴリアテ」のフルシアンテとの共演もヤバいですね。

Frances The Mute ist ein Album in dem der ständige Wechsel von Musikstil, Rhytmus, Tempo und Lautstärke im Vordergrund steht. Was sich dadurch entfacht, ist ein einzigartiges und in seiner Komplexität unerreichbares Prog-Rock-Inferno. Verspielte Rock-, Jazz- und Latinparts treffen auf elektronische Soundcollagen mit eingestreuten Samples und hinterlassen ein mitunter psychodelischen Cocktail, um dann gleich wieder Lautstark aus den Trips ins volle Bewusstsein zurückgerufen zu werden. Hier gibt es auch nach vielfachen Hören noch Entdeckungen. Omar Rodiguez-Lopez frickelt ausgelassen und unverwechselbar auf der Gitarre, Cedric Bixler Zavalas Gesang super abgestimmt und nicht so überpräsent wie auf manch anderen Alben. Es gibt Raum für viele Instrumentalstrecken mit hochkarätigen Gastspielen, ekstatischen Solos und hintergründigen Streicher- und Bläserarrangements. Es ist wie ein unvorhersehbares Bilderbuch, welches durch verschiedene Erlebnisse, Stimmungen und Orte führt, dieses vermischt, stellenweise düster beklemmend und dann doch wieder lebensbejahend wirkt. Dies ist nicht verwunderlich, soll doch im Album die Episode um den Tod des ehemaligen Bandmembers und Freundes Jeremy Ward verarbeitet worden sein. Und damit verbundene Themen wie Isolation und Sucht Eingang gefunden haben. Passender Weise endet das Album dann dort wo es anfing und verführt zum Drücken auf Repeat.

As described.

Toujours avoir un CD de Mars Volta, en voiture, en amoureux, pour se décompresser ou décompenser. Cet album magistral s'adapter facilement à tous les contextes et à votre humeur du moment, pour peu que vous ne soyez pas suicidaire quand même (Omar et Cédric ne font pas de miracle).... On commence fort par le premier titre (Cygnus vismund cygnus), ça part dans tous les sens mais c'est tellement bon, pour ensuite aller vers des titres d'une facture peut être plus évidente et mélodieuse (The Widow, L'via etc.) pour retrouver des plages très aériennes et apaisées pour ensuite et finir par un petit pétage de plomb en règle.... Immense quoi....

Dategli un ascolto (anche due) e valutate voi stessi. Packaging del cd ben curato e ottima resa sonora.