The Mars Volta - Francis the Mute

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

John Frusciantes guitar solos are blistering, and Cygnus... Vismund Cygnus is like nothing i've ever heard before. Despite what most people have said about it i think The Widow is great, and obviously the only single.

The tracklisting makes no sense and its tough to work out when the different suites start and end, but after about 20 noodling minutes it finishes strongly with the Sarcophagi reprise.

Omar said with every bit of improvisation they lose another At the Drive-in fan, and that is why they improvise so much. I doubt they'll have many ATD-I fans after this, but i think its pretty mind blowing.

It does lose focus slightly with the last track, i'd say track 9 could have been cut and track 10 could have been halved, but the rest of the album is gold.

Cedric has matured a hell of a lot since At the Drive-in. He doesnt shout so much anymore and the production of the album is a huge improvement with Omar is charge, (though some of my friends think its a little over produced).

10 bucks, buy it man.

they kick about a third as much ass as a Dream Theater side project.

ouch!

-- dmun (a_s_fishe...), March 1st, 2005 3:00 PM. (link)

That's fucking retarded if it's true. "Close to the Edge" has three tracks on the CD, though you could split it into suites if you went by the liner notes. "Thick As A Brick" has 2 (technically would be one track if that was possible back in '72). Is Universal gonna tell us that those are EPs?

wtf? writers be stupid!

Anything they hate this much HAS to be good.

yes, L'Via L'Viaquez has a few latin/salsa/psych/prog moments.

I'm guessing thats deliberate, Cedrics lyrics on Deloused were pretty much nonsensical gibberish, whereas on Frances hes trying to tell a story and Omar overcompensates by sticking the vocals real high in the mix.

Also, the last song is called "Cassandra Geminni", not "...Gemini". Don't ask me about the conceptual significance of that particular spelling.

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=2789

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