Albums

The Mars Volta - Frances The Mute

Tim Miller 21/02/2005

Rating: 4/5

If you were in the know about the Mars Volta, this would have been one of your most hotly anticipated albums. Even if you don't know TMV, it's arguably an essential addition to your CD collection. Mixing influences such as Latin Bossa Nova with jazz-style chord progressions, adding orchestral layers over the top, as well as highly technical progressive rock sounds, The Mars Volta have created an incredible CD. The album is more a compilation of movements rather than songs, each piece moving between different planes, particularly first 'song' Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus, which screams in musical orgasms at different points during its course. Clever harmonies, funky guitar licks, squealing solos, furious drumming: like their lyrics, The Mars Volta are talking a different language in music at the moment. Listen carefully.

(originally part of the This Month We Have Mostly Been Listening To... feature)