The Mars Volta - Frances The Mute (2005)

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If one needed further proof of the contemporary revival/reassessment of the ambitiously overwrought sensibilities once so reviled in '70s rock, this aggressively mindbending second album by the Mars Volta offers it up in spades. Band mainstays Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala insist that labels like "prog" don't interest them, and that this is emphatically not a "sequel" to 2003's De-Loused in the Comatorium. What it is was thematically inspired by a stranger's diary allegedly found by late bandmate Jeremy Ward, the basis for an expansive, often amorphous musical head-trip that brews psychedelia, trance, hard-rock and free-jazz into a daunting new whole. The dozen tracks here represent but five "songs" proper, though the band's disdain for conventional track banding inspire it to sound more like a stream-of-consciousness soundscape from Can--or a dark, lyrically inventive, if decidedly troubled corner of their ids. On the "Umbilical Syllables" portion of "Cygnus.." and "The Widow" Bixler-Zavala invokes the wailing, Led Zeppelin II & III spirit of Robert Plant set against a feverish, swirling melange that's anything but the blues. The vocalist coaxes "L' Via l'Viaquez" en Espanol, while his band indulges its space-mambo conceits with an evocative spirit that recalls Latin Playboys at their most mischievous. It's an album that loops back on itself in a haunting ellipse--and one whose boundless ambition makes Pink Floyd sound like three-chord bar punters by comparison. --Jerry McCulley


Tracklist:

1. Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus: A. Sarcophagi/B. Umbilical Syllables/C. Facilis Descenus Averni/D. Con Safo
2. The Widow
3. L'Via L'Viaquez
4. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore: A. Vade Mecum/B. Pour Another Icepick/C. Pisacis (Phra-Men-Ma)/D. Con Safo
5. Cassandra Geminni: A. Tarantism
6. Cassandra Geminni: B. Plant A Nail In The Navel Stream
7. Cassandra Geminni: C. Faminepulse
8. Cassandra Geminni: D. Multiple Spouse Wounds
9. Untitled
10. Cassandra Geminni: E. Sarcophagi
11. Cassandra Geminni: E. Sarcophagi
12. Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus: A. Sarcophagi

part1 (1-7) 89 MB
part2 (8-12) 42 MB

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