Today I am to write a review of an artistic performance. I was looking forward to this one. I suppose I out and chosen a play or poem or short video or something, but I’m just going with music. I love listening to music and I love talking about listening to music and I love love love saying why the music I listen to is awesome. There are some difficulties with this challenge, ones that I am kinda eager to face:
- Which artist to choose. I want to review someone I like so I enjoy the process, but I also want to review someone that others (my faithful blog readers) like/can tolerate so they will dig the linked music.
- I am not creative. How do I go about writing a review when I have scrabble-fright? It will come out sounding like a 4-year-old wrote it. (Scrabble-fright is a new term I just made up. It’s that thing where a smart person with a slightly above average vocabulary freezes up during a game of scrabble and can only come up with 2-4 letter words.)
- How can I find some way to let the reader listen to the music without signing up for some privacy-robbing, music-sharing-social-media account? I could find the music first or just burn a bunch of CD’s and hand them out to whoever wants to listen to the music I review.
- How do I write about anything but The Mars Volta? This is an unanswerable question.
- If I do write about The Mars Volta, how do I control myself?
Let me start out by saying I am a huge fan of The Mars Volta. Although I don’t like their two most recent albums as much as their earlier ones, they grew on me very quickly and I listen to them all the time. The first time I heard Frances I liked it right away. At the time, I wasn’t a big fan of ambient noise during songs or in between tracks, but the way The Mars Volta laid out this album changed my mind. This album is not even my favorite Mars Volta album. That goes to The Bedlam In Goliath. Bedlam is a great rock album, but Frances brings you places. You are simultaneously in an infinite open space and a finite dome. You are brought up and down hills, through the woods, and into the wires and mechanics of the instruments making the sounds. The lyrics are meaningful and clever, but they are not needed to enjoy the album. The sounds that the singer makes while singing are more than enough to carry you from place to place. It energizes you and settles you throughout the album making you want more and yet be ok when it ends.
The concept behind Frances The Mute is unique. As wikipedia states: “The story given by the band on the album's concept concerns a diary that had been found in a repossessed car by late sound technician Jeremy Ward, while working as a repo-man. The author of the diary is unknown but appeared to be someone who was adopted and was searching for their birth parents, and who may have suffered from mental illness caused by the death of a loved one. The lyrics for each track on the album are loosely based on characters and life events described in this person's diary.”
I used to be able to find this information on the band's website, but I couldn’t tonight. Needless to say, the wikipedia article is, as far as I am aware, accurate.
Search various lyric sites or songmeanings.com and you’ll find lots of people discussing each track. Breaking them down to really figure out the characters in the story.
Listening to the album I don’t really follow the story. I have, before this review, sat down and read the lyrics while listening to the music, but that was awhile ago and I had since forgotten all the information and clever lines you receive. In my opinion you don’t need to understand the lyrics to appreciate the album. The sound alone is reason enough to listen to it. In fact, I will be framing my song-by-song review more in the sound than the message/lyrics.
Here is the track listing for Frances The Mute by The Mars Volta.
- Cygnus…..Vismund Cygnus
- The Widow
- L’Via L’Viaquez
- Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: A. Vade Mecum
- Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: B. Pour Another Icepick
- Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: C. Pisacis (Phra-Men-Ma)
- Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: D. Con Safo
- Cassandra Geminni: A. Tarantism
- Cassandra Geminni: B. Plan A Nail In The Navel Stream
- Cassandra Geminni: C. Faminepulse
- Cassandra Geminni: D. Multiple Spouse Wounds
- Cassandra Geminni: E. Sarcophagi
Cygnus….Vismund Cygnus
The album opens with a little acoustic guitar and within a minute it’s blazing through Spanish lyrics with whaling guitars and fast drumming. The verses are full and slick. The breakdowns between verse and chorus are thin and sparse. The singer, Cedric Bixler-Zaval, leads the music through ups and downs nicely. Just after 4 minutes the songs slows down significantly. Omar Rodrigues-Lopez, the primary guitarist and producer, slowly brings the song back to speed as the drums and bass follow along. The next 4 minutes the song works towards the crescendo moment when it returns to a blazing rock song. This only last a minute though before the songs starts to tumble away. Random street sounds replace the instruments and a creepy, repeating, circling, beeping noise takes over while cars and electrons pass by. The sounds wind down and the song ends at just over 13 minutes.
The Widow
The most radio-friendly song on the album. Clear start and finish, and a music video to go along with it. This song definitely relies more on lyrics and vocals than instruments and sounds, although the instrumentation is very solid. It’s a slower song than Cygnus….and it starts to tumble out of control at around 3 ½ minutes. After hearing about the shady man in the song the listener has about 2 minutes of circling beeping noise sans passing cars.
L’Via L’Viaquez
The noise from The Widow continues into this song. Heavy reverb and drums go for just over half a minute before the kicking into a fast, bass heavy song. Most of the lyrics are in Spanish. The sound is made even fuller by the fact that I can’t understand what is being talked about! Cedric inserts well timed moans/groans/yells to accompany the tiny peaks between verses. Then, very suddenly, at about 2 ½ minutes the songs takes a turn. He sings in English over slow wavy guitars. The drums turn hollow. He speaks of his mother. Within a minute the guitars are back in full force. The drums are driving the song further up and up. The Spanish returns and the song is back the way it was a minute ago. This pattern of sudden stops and fast rises continues again. About halfway through the song, 6:30, he sings of not being afraid while the drums bring the listener down a deep well. At the bottom, a gong sounds, the drums go hollow, and the singing is draped with reverb. The entire pace of the song slows. A clean piano sound comes in at about 9 minutes. The guitars fly back and forth. At 11 minutes the instruments stop and the vocals wither away and die like a radio that’s slowly losing its batteries. In the end, the only thing left are the sounds of a peaceful forest.
Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: A. Vade Mecum
The forest sounds are slowly taken over by a dreary symphony of far off instruments. Ghostly woos join in. The woos ebb and flow from peaceful to painful. After 4 minutes an acoustic guitar tries to bring order. Horns follow. After a total of 5 minutes a mellow song forms. A theme is previewed as the song meanders through an open field. Mentions of mothers, children, pain and suffering give the song a dire feeling. The song breaks down as the horns come back in. Guitars march along while electrons fly by. The song becomes more triumphant as the singer talks of everyone turning away. At 9 minutes most of the instruments fly away and what’s left are sounds of an open field with a few spurting horns and keys. The song slows to a sound just above white noise. However, with 2 minutes left the white noise starts to be over taken by the sound of a song that will appear later in the album.
Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: B. Pour Another Icepick
The song starts with a hard stop from the last song. Fast drums and even faster (but quiet) guitars flank the singer as he talk of becoming one of the others. Some sort of vocal effect creates ridges in the vocals as he sings of two people from his past. He is brought to his knees. He sings as though he is being taken up higher. The music rushes him higher and higher before pausing for him to say, “No there’s not light, in the darkest of your furthest reaches.” The music holds him up there as his voice echoes throughout the expansive world he has been brought to. The guitars step back as the horns bring him higher again. At just over 4 minutes the guitars and bass come in very heavy as he sings of shackles freeing you. The music slams you over and over.
Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: C. Pisacis (Phra-Men-Ma)
The song starts as the slamming from the last song speeds up. No longer slammed, you are now being driven through the scenery. The drums and guitars let you go to flail in all directions. The echoing lyrics are speaking directly too you. Woos and moans, hisses and screams, ascend and descend as the lead guitar comes back in. Although the end of the song is 4 minutes away, the drums start to pound away at the ending. The guitar goes in and out. The singer tempts you to stay and partake of the events at hand. At 3 minutes the song picks back up. It thins out before reaching the summit. Eventually the instruments start to break down. They try to leave as the lyrics try to stay. The instruments return. The singer pours his soul into the ocean of sound. He repeats come cryptic lyrics over and over. Percussion takes over as the guitar dissolves into reverb.
Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore: D. Con Safo
The beginning of Con Safo marks the end of Miranda. The singer repeats the lyrics that ended the last song. This time the lyrics are up front and leading the instruments. The horns and keys follow close behind the vocals. They rise high as the crescendo reaches it’s maximum height. Although not quite in utter space, we are now clearly out of this world. With very sharp horns the song starts to tumble downward.
Cassandra Geminni: A. Tarantism
The horns take over and bring the song spiraling downward. The bass joins in as the guitar takes hold. The drums aid. Soon they all subside. The vocals come back. There’s nothing you can do. The air is cold. The guitar starts a tiny riff. The drums beat to signal the end. The vocals become whispers. There is still a song there, but it’s being broken down. Over the next few minutes it will break and be rebuilt. At just over 5 minutes the bass changes tempo. The end may be near. Sounds fly by as the drums fade in and out. Around 7 ½ minutes the song slows.
Cassandra Geminni: B. Plan A Nail In The Navel Stream
The only thing constant is the bass. The guitar whips by you, pulling you around. The drums march along next to you. For the next 5 minutes you are being moved through space. There are no vocals. You don’t know if you are moving around these objects or if they’re moving around you.
Cassandra Geminni: C. Faminepulse
There is not discernible song yet. The drums are fighting the horns. The bass is still there. The guitar whizzes by. The chaos increases until the horns win out. At just under 2 minutes a song starts to emerge with the horns leading the way. The bass and drums have teamed up to drive you faster and faster. The guitar has gotten on board as well. There is a familiar sound. You’ve heard this song before. Brick by brick the songs is built. You are driven faster and faster upward to where you were before. The driving stop and the drums hold you in space.
Cassandra Geminni: D. Multiple Spouse Wounds
“No there’s not light, in the darkest of your furthest reaches.” Miranda visits again. You are surrounded by familiarity, but only for a moment.
Cassandra Geminni: E. Sarcophagi
Acoustic guitars signal the beginning of the end. The album ends the way it began. You wonder: Did it even happen?
