Listening to Frances The Mute, the second full-length album from prog-rock band The Mars Volta, is taking an adventurous journey in and out of different genres of music - heavy metal, punk, latin jazz and salsa.
Produced by the band's Porto Rican-raised member Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, the 75-minute epic contains only five tracks - three of them - the 32-minute Cygnus....Vismund Cygnus, Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore and Cassandra Gemini - are each divided into a few segments.
Like their debut, De-Loused In The Comatorium (2003), Frances The Mute is built around the memory of the band's late friends. This time it's former bandmate Jeremy Ward who died of a drug overdose. The album is inspired by a diary that Ward found in the backseat of a car. The diary told of the author being adopted and looking for his real parents.
Of all the tracks, L'Via L'Viaquez, which is sung mostly in Spanish, is the easiest one for general fans to accept. It's a journey worth exploring.