Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
TWENTY FIVE WIVES IN THE LAKE TONIGHT. I’m stomping around the pool table like I think I’m Slenderman, except I look like Screech. I’m the exact kind of teen who would be playing a Mars Volta album at a party instead of trying to make out. My short-lived high school girlfriend called me “The Prophet of The Mars Volta.” I think my credentials speak for themselves here as I commemorate twenty years of Frances the Mute.
The Mars Volta’s 2003 debut De-Loused in the Comatorium truly changed rock music. I remember every musician I knew was mind-blown by the insane bilingual blend of rock, jazz, latin, punk, ambient…. No one knew how to categorize it. My punk rock cohorts loved it. My jazz-fusion drummer dad loved. It wasn’t just “prog rock”–it was truly progressive rock. The Mars Volta weren’t the only band from the time that didn’t sound like anything else. However, similar such bands like Radiohead subverted the idea of a “rock band.” What Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez created was something that still truly rocked. It was positively incendiary.
The frenzied sound machine was not for everyone. It seemed like those who couldn’t vibe with it were spending too much time fruitlessly trying to pin down what it sounded like. But for those of us that just let the blitz of noise pummel us, The Mars Volta represented everything exciting about rock music and, dare I say, the future.
Something so exceptional begged the question: How could it possibly be followed up?
While De-Loused was by no means an easy listen, working with famed producer Rick Rubin must have resulted in something a little tamer than they had originally hoped. By working entirely on their own for the sophomore record, Cedric and Omar were free from the shackles. The result was something completely deranged and, thankfully, spectacular.
Employing a Miles Davis-inspired technique, Omar wrote and arranged all of the music himself and taught each player their parts separately from the group. By forcing each musician to learn and track their parts outside of any other context, they played according to a vision they themselves created. This type of controlled chaos makes the impossible possible the same way a DJ can mash up samples into something completely new and at the same time coherent. Music that was not made to be played together somehow finding its way into a unified revelation. Even with the constant time and tempo shifts, the sound moves fluidly, with a rhythm section that is more in the pocket than you would have guessed–or perhaps deeper in the pocket than would have been possible with human error? And amongst all of the grooves and riffs are interwoven sound effects that add color. Think prog rock’s version of The Avalanches.
“Cygnus…Vismund Cygnus” opens the record with a sonic boom. Frenetic, but funky. The short, quiet intro is met with a jolt of electricity. Immediately delivering what fans were craving. “Sangre sonando de rabia naci”–roughly translating to “blood sounding of rage I was born”–sings Cedric and as the chorus of “WHO DO YOU TRUST?” erupts every pulse from the bass and drums hits like a lethal Raiden combo in Mortal Kombat. What the fuck is going on it’s so good. And I’m just going to say this now: Jon Theodore was and is a singular talent on the drums. SO much happens in the unrelenting first four minutes of the song. But wait, there’s more! The bedlam (wink wink if you’re a TMV fan) gives way to a quiet groove that alternates 9/16 and 5/4 time and somehow you can vibe to it? Omar does his trademark “I’m not totally sure what I’m doing” solo, managing to sound like a standoff in a western film as the band slowly swells to the surface behind him. It becomes clear Cedric took his game to another level as they explode into the final chorus and he hits the high G; you’re simply stunned this is the guy that sang “One Armed Scissor” (honestly I’m still not totally sure).
“The Widow” comes next, serving as the lead single and The Volta’s most radio ready track with a beautiful fretless bass performance from Juan Alderete. A reminder that–yes–they can in fact rock with restraint. Ambience follows after with pitch shifting and sputtering simulating an overdose. Around five minutes of unsettling, eerie ambience surrounds the album’s lead single and shortest track. They did not want the listener to ever feel at ease. In fact, I challenge anyone to listen to this on a drive down a dark road by themselves and not feel something (fear).
“L’Via L’Viaquez” takes a Jekyll and Hyde approach, toggling back and forth between a fucking rock out and a sultry Latin groove. In a clever move, the rock’n’roll parts are sung in Spanish and the Latin parts are sung in English. Tasteful cameos come in the form of frequent collaborator John Frusciante of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame giving us a couple of his best All-American guitar solos and salsa pianist Larry Harlow whose clanking on the keys evokes the sights and sounds of a wild west saloon.
Indeed, there are nods to spaghetti western throughout the record, but they really come through on the penultimate track “Miranda, That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore.” Field recordings of Puerto Rican coqui frogs ironically conjure the vast emptiness of the western desert–there’s something special and wild about Omar meticulously splicing together four entire minutes of frogs croaking and being like “yeah that’s the right amount.” Then trumpets straight out of a Morricone score blare through the ambiance (courtesy of one Flea–also heard on “The Widow”). Cedric takes the form of Cygnus’ grandmother Miranda and the frailty in his voice is noteworthy on the album’s ballad.
Recurring motif “Con Safo” leads to a true jump scare to start “Cassandra Gemini.” This is where everything goes to another level. As for the music, it’s a demented symphony of sorts, replete with horns and strings. The band actually gets to jam together for parts of this one as well. The story comes full circle as it ends where it began. Incredibly, for as much noise and meandering that happens in the first four tracks of the album–none of “Cassandra Gemini”’s 32 minutes feel extraneous. Much of this is thanks Cedric’s gripping performance throughout. It’s a vocal master class. He operates as multiple characters complete with moans, growls, shrieks, whispers, etc. It’s enough for you to forgive a man for wielding his thesaurus around and using terms like “orifice icicles” to describe teeth. He’s so in the zone. The way he gasps for air every time he says “breath” for instance. It’s a disturbed thespian performing a bone-chilling campfire horror story. I’ve never heard anything like it.
The story that is Frances the Mute serves as a final tribute to founding member Jeremy Ward, who died of a heroin overdose on tour. Supposedly (not really) it was inspired by a diary Ward recovered from an impounded vehicle while he was working as a repo man, wherein the author appears to have been adopted and in search of their birth parents.
Inscrutable though it may be, thanks to the power of fandom on the internet, we have pieced together some of what may be the story. It begins with our anti-hero Vismund Cygnus, a failed abortion whose mother, Frances, was raped and murdered by clergymen. Now a drug dealer (and sex worker?), Cygnus happens upon some clues concerning the men that raped and murdered his mother and decides to follow them in hopes of revenge. Along the way, he tracks down Frances’ sister L’Via, and mother Miranda, who have been spending their lives in hiding (for now obvious reasons).
Despite there not being any conclusive evidence uncovered in his sleuthing, a frustrated Cygnus becomes Cassandra Gemini, a second personality who takes over Cygnus’ body and decides it’s time to exact vengeance. Cassandra goes on a blood rampage, only to find Frances had actually made it out alive, and over time became the titular Widow who, in a Sweeney Todd-esque twist of fate, was the prostitute who overdosed on drugs she bought from Cygnus early in our story, unbeknownst to either of them (most likely). While it’s still possible he killed the men responsible for the rape, it’s as likely, if not more, that plenty of innocent people were killed as collateral damage. It’s possible they were all innocent! Who’s to say? Having realized he killed his mother and bunch of other people on the way to that realization, he has no choice but kill himself. Tale as old as time.
Even then, we can’t be too sure this is right, in part because Cedric was given license to make up the words as he went–and was in fact encouraged not to edit his first instincts–and in part because Cedric has always been a rather obtuse writer. Nevertheless, there is a framework and a lot of recurring imagery–teeth, snakes, icepicks to name a few. It allows the listener to form their own demented image.
While some of the lyrics can be easily ascertained and admired, like this stanza from “The Widow”–”Look at how they flock to him / From an isle of open sores / He knows that the taste is such / Is such to die for“–in many ways the lyrics on this record fall into the category of “no one knows what it means but it’s provocative”: “She can bat a broken eyelid / Raining maggots from its sty,” “She was a mink handjob in sarcophagus heels,” “And his multiple sons with their mandible tongues / Set crucified fires to petrified homes.” I could go on and on, but I’ll leave the rest to the reader. Okay, fine, here’s one more: “If you should see the dice charmed with its snake choked eyes / You’ll wear the widow’s weeds, because they’re just your size.”
The release was a complete disaster.
It starts with a low-quality leak making the rounds three months early. I remember finding the late 2004 leak on Soulseek. I knew it wasn’t going to sound good. Hell, I didn’t even know that it was going to be the right album, having been burned many times by Kazaa, not to mention many demo versions of De-Loused in the Comatorium made their way into circulation early on as well. As expected, it sounded like absolute garbage, but even then, I knew it was special. I deleted it and patiently waited for the proper CD release in March. $5.99 at Circuit City, what a deal!
That wasn’t right either. Due to a dispute with Universal, Cassandra Gemini was split into eight tracks so that the band could be paid for a full album rather than an EP. However, “Cassandra Gemini” was made up of five parts. Nobody knew how to properly label the tracks. When the CD was loaded into Windows Media even to today when you stream it on Spotify–the tracklisting is wrong. I choose to believe Cedric and Omar are little tickled that after all this time it’s still not fixed. (Note: there was a Best Buy-exclusive CD single of the previously unreleased title track that serves as a prelude to the album – would also recommend but will not go into further detail.)
The Prophet of The Mars Volta knew and did everything he could in his (non-existent) power to educate the masses on the proper tracklisting. Sadly, Last.fm data may never be fully accurate. No matter! The moral of the story–besides don’t do drugs and don’t go on a blood rampage with a hunch–is this record rocks and it cemented the band’s legacy as one of the most inventive and awe-inspiring bands of all time. Two decades later I’m still losing my shit screaming, “TWENTY FIVE SNAKES POUR OUT OF YOUR EYES.” My wife is less enthused.
Part of what makes The Mars Volta fascinating is that for as meticulously crafted as the music is, you find yourself wondering if Omar knows music theory or has even taken a guitar lesson as he meanders through atonal solos with no regard for the time and tempo. Could a trained musician write and record something so imaginative? Almost ironically, it eliminates so much of what can make modern prog rock boring: A conscious, arbitrary decision to play in 7/8 with perfect synchronicity. Dream Theater started doing it and hundreds of copycats followed suit. Hell, I started one of those bands. Sure, it can be cerebral and impressive. The problem is the pursuit of technical precision so easily becomes robotic, lifeless. Frances the Mute is anything but. It bursts with imagination and humanity.
Of course, it wasn’t going to change the minds of anyone who had already written them off. Looking back, I do find it amusing that the Pitchfork 2.0 review claims that indie and prog rock fans “are dominated by apostate wallflowers who act a lot cooler and more self-assured than they really are” and the writer is anonymous. Citing “storytelling with the same breed of macabre circumlocution that pocked the band’s debut” and concluding that the album is “a homogenous shitheap of stream-of-conscious turgidity,” I know what you’re thinking and no, those aren’t also Mars Volta lyrics. To that end, I couldn’t help but think the writer was afraid because they saw too much of themselves in the pedantry that makes up the most repulsive aspects of The Mars Volta. And indeed, the duo is a shining example of unbridled, unashamed creativity. You can choose to see it as weird, or you can choose to see it as inspiring. Maybe what repulses us is our own fear of being seen. I know I’d rather be the buffoon rocking the fuck out and not the guy worrying about if it’s cool or not. The truth is NEITHER of these people were the ones making out, but at least for me it was by choice. Probably the wrong choice in hindsight, but dammit I love this record.
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Chris Favata | @chrisfavata.bsky.social
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