The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute (single) REVIEW: Words cannot describe this song, I don't think that anything like this has ever been tried in rock history, or in any music for that matter. A 4 minute intro with percussive hammer sounds, eerie keyboard sounds, bells, and slide guitar flows into an intense trademark TMV riff with Cedric singing at the top of his lungs, after this and an awesome guitar solo, it dies down...Cedric starts whispering/gasping out his lines, with folky, haunting acoustic guitar in the background, the music builds and builds up as Cedric's voice reaches soaring heights, and the song goes into full gear again with some instrumental madness from Jon, Omar, and Juan...the epic ending riff supports Cedric's pained voice: "This never happened....I saw you leave and crawl onto a bed of broken windows." An amalgam of classic rock, electronica, acoustics, and a hint of punk and metal create this masterpiece of a song. Rating: ***** The album "Frances the Mute" comes out this Tuesday, so MAKE SURE YOU GET IT!! This single that couldn't be included on the album because of lack of space (and Universal not wanting a double CD) will be included on "the Widow" single CD that has not had a slated release for North America yet...my review of "Frances the Mute" will be written next week sometime
That's news to me. So far, there isn't a release date for the FTM song from what I hear. Anyways, I agree. I love this track more than any other TMV song they've ever made. The first opening lyrics that Cedric belt out...wow. The way it sounds...everything. I love it.
without critisizing the musical abilities of TMV, frances the mute (whole album) is by far not as great as previews reported. in fact the long breaks between the songs take every intensity out of the main motives. i sure like the first 4 songs on the album, well, let's say the main motives. the interludes are more than boring, they are ridiculously misplaced. it has nothing to do with creativity to create a structure which is more disturbing noises than music. they could have easily saved 10 minutes if not more by cutting these terrible breaks.
To be honest, you either love the noises in their songs, or you hate 'em. I don't really believe in a middle ground on the issue. I don't think you can convince someone else to like the noises either, so I won't go into that. Cedric, Omar and the rest of the band put the noises in there for reasons I don't know, and probably won't ever know, but I like them. Just adds a mood to it. EDIT: But I'm going to make a theory and say that the noises in songs are there so when they play them live, they can cut them out, and either play the songs without them, or have a jam session where the noises are.