Frances the Mute

honestly, I shouldn't be writing this review of Frances the Mute by the Mars Volta simply because I haven't listened to the damn thing enough to form what you might call a coherent understanding of the album. I think that should say something about the disc though. as mentioned in a previous post, Frances the Mute has been particularly disappointing because it was so highly recommended. my first impression was lost amid overwhelming waves of irritation, so I took a break from it before giving the disc a couple more earnest listens. despite some genuinely creative parts, I just can't call this CD "good." whether or not you do depends on how you answer the question, "can raging narcissistic genius still be considered genius?"

the album is kinda like a shitty action movie. over time, you learn to just disregard the bad parts and wait for the good ones. the good parts of this disc are moments of near brilliance. asynchornous conflicting harmonies thrash passionate driving soundscapes and all that bullshit. the music is undeniably novel. and in an era where most pop music is hyper-polished piles of shit, it's occasionally refreshing to hear something a little rough around the edges.

occasionally. but then again, mars volta is rough around the edges like $200 "broken-in" diesel jeans are rough around the edges. kinda, but not. a bunch of times you want to shake the band like the whining babies they are and scream "what the shit are you trying to pull here?"

all too often, rodriguez lopez screeches in the same way he imagines "true rockers" should screech and too many moments of the album are reminiscent of hair-metal jam sessions. parts of the CD are the musical equivalent of some moron rambling on about the moral implications of a science article he read in newsweek. smatterings of noise and dissonance are smugly thrown in between moments of harmony as if to demonstrate self-congratulatory musical enlightenment: "you just don't get it. you hear harmony AND dissonance, but we hear harmony IN the dissonance." wrong, asshole. sometimes, the emperor is just naked. that noise isn't music, it's just noise. and calling yourselves "progressive" doesn't give you license to shit into a jewel case and call it art.