Mars Volta

Make no mistake: There's an anti-Mars Volta contingent out there, and its members will rip this disc apart. They'll dismiss its musical variegation as masturbatory overindulgence, its lyrics as lugubrious faux poetry, its ambitious structure as strikingly pretentious -- and in some ways, they'll be correct. Yet such complaints completely...

By Michael Roberts

March 17, 2005

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Make no mistake: There's an anti-Mars Volta contingent out there, and its members will rip this disc apart. They'll dismiss its musical variegation as masturbatory overindulgence, its lyrics as lugubrious faux poetry, its ambitious structure as strikingly pretentious -- and in some ways, they'll be correct. Yet such complaints completely miss the point of Frances the Mute. Sure, the album is a mess -- a crazy, entrancing, glorious mess.

When Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler Zavala departed from At the Drive In a few years back, they also left behind any lingering preconceptions of what a rock band is supposed to be. As a result, even "The Widow," the closest thing to a standard song here, features keyboard atonalities and synthesized wind. As for "Cassandra Gemini," it includes lines like "His orifice icicles hemorrhaged by combing her torso," which look harebrained in print but actually work in the context of the group's sound, a figurative maelstrom of prog, free jazz, metal, funk, Latin rock and lots more.

Excessive? Definitely. But in this case, too much is just the right amount.

Michael Roberts began his career with Westword in 1990 as music editor. In 1999, he took on a new role, full-time media reporter, as author of a column called The Message. In 2008, he became the lead writer for Westword's news blog, The Latest Word, a position he held until January 2023. Michael continues to freelance for Westword, covering everything from business to sports and the media; he also contributes to Jazziz, a national music magazine. He holds a bachelor's degree from what is now Colorado Mesa University and master's degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, and Northwestern University.

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