The Mars Volta - Francis the Mute

Fair enough, but I didn't find the riffage to be heavy nor consistent enough on the first one. Haven't heard the new one, so I'll defer to you on that.

also best drummer eva.

So OTM.

Vintage Hipgnosis (Pink Floyd/10cc/Black Sabbath/Peter Gabriel) was, as the hip hop kids say, "the shit!"

Current Hipgnosis (Audioslave/Cranberries/Mars Volta/Muse) is DIRE and cliched.

what the fuck ever....Rush were great pop songwriters....

Mars Volta still sucks. :)

The best progressive rock bands a) showed a surprising amount of restraint while playing, and b) knew how to write a catchy melody. Frances the Mute has none of those. When they try to ape Santana circa 1969 on that brutally long half hour track, the album went from pretentious to just plain horrendous.

This doesn't hold a candle to De-Loused.

This album makes me wish I was in a rock band. I may ACTUALLY buy this one.

That's right. The rhythm section.

Best description of The Mars Volta yet!

Also...who would knowlingly, consciously emulate Primus?

The band that practices in the room next to us....Primus and Mr. Bungle

This sounds great! But they're doing it over the course of a 30 min track?

A) Giant unfocused mess

(then 2 weeks later)

B) His favorite Mars Volta eva!

Personally, I can never find the door to walk into their music. It's like I'm looking at it, I know it's there, but I don't feel anything. No desire to hum along or tap my foot or anything. I see it though.

Third track = the shit

this could be the coolest album cover in a while

Yeah man, I hear it too. Sounds like a little mastering fuck-up.

Getting involved with ILM threads is kind of like Daria sitting between Beavis and Butthead. Eventually, you have to tell them to oscillate their weiners and get up off the couch.

But what do I know? I'm just a Le Tigre fan who couldn't possibly like Wolf Eyes too. That never happens.

I really did like the art though. The images would have cracked me up if not for the captions. Are they more like Le Tigre's or Wolf Eyes' music?

Nevermind, I'm gonna go watch VH-1 now and wait for my head to explode.

-- Sara Sherr (sar...), June 24th, 2004.

Aaron, I've listened to more prog and indie rock than any healthy person should. And I've seen math rock fans turn around and sneer at Yes and Rush, which is ridiculous.

But seriously, I wasn't exactly the first person to rain on the Mars Volta parade here, so why all the hostility directed towards little old me?

All I know is, that I heard that record for the first time at a record store where I work and it made my teeth hurt. But hey, to each his own.

Sorry, if I hurt your prog feelings, since prog is a pretty easy target for ridicule, as is most indie rock.

OTM. as such, scab dates really dissapoints - it sounds horrible.

they should really release a live DVD, because you need to *see them. there's, like, 5 minutes of a song off the first album in that crappy Coachella movie.

Listened to this album from beginning to end last night and felt totally exhausted by the end of it in the best way possible. Surely there can't be just me that considers this their finest work?

yeah I think this is their best album

rare me and turrican convergence

turrican, brad and me!

correct the album title tho pls already

I think it's their best, too. Love everything about this record. Saw them open for System of a Down 11 years ago this month, they played four songs in an hour, it was so great. Setlist was Cygnus / L'Via / The Widow / Drunkship. Really bummed that Cedric and Omar, of all people, got on the reunion train full-time with ATDI this year. Booooooring!

The way that 'Cassandra Gemini' is split up on the CD is absolutely batshit, isn't it? I understand that they divided it up that way simply for publishing/payment reasons, but if they were going to do that, surely it would have made more sense to divide it up into 5 rather than 8!

Yeah, that always drove me nuts. I actually bought the thing again on iTunes because their version had Cassandra as one 32-minute track.

My god, the drumming on this record and on De-loused in the Comatorium is just amazing. So relentless and punishing, but at the same time so incredibly intricate. Jon Theodore was as irreplaceable in this band as Omar and Cedric were, IMO. Ikey Owens, too.

Agreed, love Jon Theodore to death. Was so excited to hear that QotSA picked him up, but he's only on one track of the latest record, and it's a slow one. He sounds fine live, but I wish Homme would could give this guy something to do already. Why pick him up at all if you weren't fixing to make a heavy psych-freak-out rock n roll record?

When The Mars Volta split up and Omar was doing his Bosnian Rainbows thing, I think Cedric said he had hoped to get to the point where Jon Theodore and Ikey Owens returned to The Mars Volta, which would have been great. Sadly, Ikey Owens is no longer with us and I can't really forsee Theodore working with Omar and Cedric again - apparently The Mars Volta's music wasn't really Theodore's thing, as much as he did a sterling job and gave his all.

I really do hope Homme makes good use of Theodore, though... I'm hoping for drum fills galore!

I remember the story around the time that Theodore was fired (jeez, 10 years ago...) was that he was smoking too much pot and didn't have his heart in it anymore. Not necessarily that the music wasn't his thing, he was just sick of Omar's dictatorial recording style & not being able to play with the band while tracking.

Also, dunno if it was posted here but either Cedric or Omar said earlier this year that they want to get back together w Jon and Eva Gardner (!!)

Agreed, love Jon Theodore to death. Was so excited to hear that QotSA picked him up, but he's only on one track of the latest record, and it's a slow one. He sounds fine live, but I wish Homme would could give this guy something to do already. Why pick him up at all if you weren't fixing to make a heavy psych-freak-out rock n roll record?

― erudite beach boys fan (sheesh), Wednesday, September 7, 2016 3:58 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Something to look forward to in 2017, probably.

xpost:

It was Ikey Owens that hated the way that Omar wanted to track the songs up, particularly on Frances The Mute. Theodore and Alderete enjoyed working that way, but it's possible it wore Theodore down over time. I've heard numerous things - Theodore didn't like the music, he didn't like playing live etc. etc.

Listening to this again, and it's still a masterpiece.

yes

can someone correct the thread-title already