This came out in 2005 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
How do you describe the indescribable? That’s the basic conundrum faced by anyone trying to categorize The Mars Volta’s stunning sophomore disc Frances the Mute.
Partly, this dilemma is the band’s own doing; they hate labels. When they were in At the Drive-In, they loathed being pigeonholed as emo. Now, even though they rock like a prog band and talk like a prog band, they don’t want to be called a prog band. And they don’t want Frances the Mute to be dismissed as a concept album.
Well, that doesn’t make a critic’s job any easier. But really, the biggest hurdle to pinning down Mars Volta and Frances is the disc itself. If you bought their groundbreaking 2003 debut De-Loused in the Comatorium and thought they couldn’t possibly top it, think again. This five-track, 72-minute song cycle is one of the most daring, uncompromising and just plain weird albums you’ll ever have the pleasure of trying (and likely failing) to decipher.
The tale of an orphan’s search for his parents, supposedly inspired by a diary their deceased keyboard player found in the back seat of a repossessed car, Frances the Mute is a harrowing, transfixing portrait of anguish, addiction and alienation, painted with nightmarish surrealist imagery worthy of Bosch on a bad day (“I’ll peel back all of my skin;” “The owls came a knocking, placenta in their stares”) and voiced by Cedric Bixler-Zavala in a keening, choked tenor descended from Geddy Lee, Robert Plant and Perry Farrell. The musical canvas is every bit as formidable, with multi-part epics (Cassandra Geminni clocks in at 32 minutes) that fearlessly carom between virtually every musical genre you could name — swaggering rock, bristling punk, intricate prog, swirling psychedelic, skronking free jazz, rrrrock en espanol, claustrophobic electronica, avant post-rock — topped by an endless litany of blistering licks and noodly solos from Omar Rodriguez-Lopez.
In an era of cookie-cutters and carbon copies, Frances the Mute makes it clear The Mars Volta are defiantly, spellbindingly, intimidatingly original. If that’s not putting too much of a label on them, that is.
