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 Post subject: Year In Review (5): The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute
PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 1:55 am 
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Average Metacritic score 74 (31 reviews)

http://www.playlouder.com/review/+francesthemute/

The Mars Volita
Frances the Mute (Universal)
US Date:March 1, 2005
Rating : 90


It's a weird world we live in when progressive rock can sound this vital, this fresh, this downright exhilarating. Prog, lest we forget, being a movement that became so stale and indulgent that punk had to happen as the ultimate two-fingered riposte. Three decades on and prog crawls out from under its rock looking less shamed than when it ran off all those years ago, blundering in clownish platforms with its stupid beard flapping behind like Biggles' scarf. Bands such as Muse (and to a lesser extent The Darkness) have done wonders for noodly, interminable guitar epics, but it's The Mars Volta who have produced a record so out there, so mind-bogglingly grandiose that it beggars belief.

There are five songs in all, or rather five envelopes with titles like 'Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore' and 'Cygnus... Vismund Cygnus', and within each of these parts are more parts; kind of like 'Supper's Ready' by Genesis, but unfathomably expansive, whizzing and frothing along at an unholy pace, and featuring the most brutal and wigged-out funk-metal-prog-madness you're ever likely to hear. They wear their influences on their Wizard sleeves; Led Zeppelin, Carlos Santana, Frank Zappa, even Queen can be heard within, though it's the production (by the band themselves) and the mixing (by much in demand Rich Costey) that elevates 'Frances the Mute' to the exalted position it shows off from.

Of course, the lyrics are still unfathomably pretentious, like the scribbles of a sixth former who's just got into magic mushrooms. "Blackmailed, she fell off every mountain / The ones they tightly wrapped in tape / In her eraser sang the guilty / As it made the best mistakes..." etc etc. Err, yeah, right on Cedric. But miraculously the lyrics never sound like the pompous shite they undoubtedly are. They fit the music and make the whole picture even more laughably and absurdly brilliant. I mean, what does "My nails peel back / When the taxidermist ruined / Goose stepped the freckling impatience" actually mean? And who gives a fuck?

Omar and Cedric's opus is of such flamboyant magnitude it can only feel like the future, and judging by the length of some of these songs, you'll be living in the future by the time it's finished. If you've heard 'The Widow' by now you'll have an inkling what to expect, but nothing can prepare you for just how mighty 'Frances the Mute' is. Unspeakably good.

Jeremy Allen

reviewed on 27 Feb 2005

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Last edited by Bee OK on Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:01 am 
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one of my least favorite records ever.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:02 am 
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Pretentious nonsense.

not bad, but c'mon.. they broke up ATDI, cause they wanted to make this music so bad?

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:07 am 
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Even though I've enjoyed listening to them sometimes, calling them "vital, fresh and downright exhilarating" is off. They're also not "brutal." They're excessive and pretentious, but not brutal.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:10 am 
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contradiction Wrote:
one of my least favorite records ever.


and i liked DeLoused as well as having seen em live


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:11 am 
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blech

After selling my copy of their first album, I didn't even bother to listen to this one all the way through before writing it off. No one can convince me I'm wrong or make me care about this band.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:13 am 
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i feel all warm inside

i think weve bonded guys


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:13 am 
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Their first album is fantastic, but I couldn't even make it through track 3 of their latest. I sold it quickly.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:14 am 
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BTW, I posted on ILM about this whole 'Year In Review' thing...so you know. I have brought up Obner up over there like i do ILM here...

This album does nothing for me and I love Muse esp. Origin Of Symmetry and Radiohead so it's not Progs fault.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:15 am 
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I didn't even listen to this one, and I liked the first album a bit.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:15 am 
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Muse is more Queen than 'prog' prog


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:15 am 
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Not a big fan. I stumbled onto a copy of Frances the Mute for $3.00. Didn't get into it. Sold it back for $4.00.

I used to like that "Inertiatic ESP" song from De-Loused though.....


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:17 am 
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Gayford R. Tincture

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I did like the first album for the first 3 or 4 times I listened to it.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:17 am 
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Cantstandya

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:21 am 
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Drinky, your new aviator is blowing my mind becaue you had the other one for so long... :thumbsup:

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:22 am 
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Better than Coheed & Cambria


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 3:01 am 
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I liked it. I thought if you liked the first album, you'd like this album, but I've met too many people who liked one and not the other (both ways), so I think I'm in the minority on that. I don't know why. I don't know what I'm missing.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 3:03 am 
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I loved DeLoused. Loved, loved, loved it. I think "The Widow" is one of the better songs of '05. But the rest of the album...I just can't listen to it. I still own it, though.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 7:55 am 
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DeLoused was great. This one wasn't. The fact that "The Widow" charted in the UK and available on karaoke is pretty great, though.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:30 pm 
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I really like this album. I bought it on a whim because it was only $5.99 at Circuit City and I liked it so much it became the gateway to many progressive bands that I now adore. I don't remember how that happened, though.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:37 pm 
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I really hated this album.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:37 pm 
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Dusty Chalk Wrote:
I liked it. I thought if you liked the first album, you'd like this album, but I've met too many people who liked one and not the other (both ways), so I think I'm in the minority on that. I don't know why. I don't know what I'm missing.


Count me in the majority then. I really liked the first one, but now after Frances I despise that one as well. It's really the only time I can think of that I liked an album but now dislike it, very strange. The new one represents everything I hate in a band and an album, honestly and without exaggeration.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 4:51 pm 
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good album, but listening to it recently, not as good as i remembered. seems to wander in its overly-spacious prog'ness a bit. still should make my top 20 of 2005.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 4:55 pm 
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ye merry gentlespoon Wrote:
Backhanded Spoon Wrote:
Better than Coheed & Cambria


I'm not sure if this is a compliment or not...

either way, this album is a turd.+

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2005 4:57 pm 
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i would rather shat in my hands and squeeze it then listen to either one of their discs.......

atdi needs to get back together

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