Frances the Mute

#2 Seller of 2005! The Mars Volta is neither a concept album band nor a prog band. Sure, they excel at both, but Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala formed the Mars Volta to dispose of labels and limitations of any kind, to move beyond. The Mars Volta's Frances The Mute is NOT a "sequel" to 2003's De-Loused In The Comatorium. Yes it builds a story around the memory of a dear departed friend--but the similarities end there. Where De-Loused... was a finite sci-fi narrative that took place entirely in an imaginary universe created for the story, Frances...transpires in the real world, inspired by a diary found by late bandmate Jeremy Ward and the similarity of the anonymous author's life to his own.

Featuring the first in-studio foray of the finely honed Mars Volta live machine and Omar's first time in the producer's chair, Frances... is basically five interconnected songs (the band considers silence between songs "a distraction"): Trademark Volta crescendos of opener "Cygnus… Vismund Cygnus" dissolve amidst a cacophony of electronic pulses and ambient washes of surf--or are they highway?--background noise, giving way to majestic ballad "The Widow," which itself splinters and careens into the powerhouse stomp of "L'Via L'Viaquez," a showstopper highlighted by career defining performances from every member of the band: Bixler-Zavala' hair-raising en Espanol vocal, Rodriguez-Lopez' guitar speaking in tongues, drummer Jon Theodore alternately invoking Bonham's ghost and taking backseat to half-tempo salsa grooves conjured by bassist Juan Alderete De la Peña, keyboardist Ikey Owens and newest member Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez (yes, fact-checkers, he is Omar's (younger) brother). Dive in at the 3:45 mark and tell me you're not listening to the classic rock of the future. "Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore" hits full rock throttle around the eight-minute mark before concluding with several minutes of Morricone-esque atmospherics and segueing into the explosive intro of "Cassandra Gemini," kicking off a 32-minute epic that ultimately returns to the opening motif of "Cygnus…" thus rounding out the five-song 75-plus minute epic!