The Widowmaker

Artists run a great risk for attempting to expand the boundaries of musical expression. Much of the argument regarding The Mars Volta’s newest offering Frances the Mute will be polarized along the relevance of this boundary expansion. The unfortunate casualty of this debate is a wondrously powerful piece of music. The album starts and ends with the same sublime piece of plucked acoustic guitar. After the intro, the band launches into the frantic shredding of “Cygnus…. Vismund Cygnus” which sounds impossibly heavier then previous Volta outings, even in spite of the fact that the guitars have less distortion on them. The track morphs after the halfway point into a jazzy breakdown that builds patiently through an understated guitar solo into a fantastic crescendo of fast bass and violins. The song’s parts then strip away one by one until there’s nothing left except simple ambient tones and a modulating loop of notes. The dissonance gives way straight into the somber ballad “The Widow.”

The closing notes of which slow to a crawl and are then accompanied by an avalanche of methodically processed noise bleeding into the Spanish flavored rock of “L’via L’Viaquez.” Perhaps the strongest moment of the album comes in the next track “Miranda That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy Anymore” with guitarist/songwriter Omar Rodriguez-Lopez playing a beautiful flanged arpeggio against the best parts of singer/lyricist Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s upper vocal register. This gives way to the tremendous epic “Cassandra Geminni.” Clocking in at over a half hour total the song is a marvel of craftsmanship. It embodies all the elements The Mars Volta fight to perfect: spastic rock, joyous funk, ethereal experimentation and otherworldly visionary prowess.