Grapthar's Daily Hive Music Feature: The Mars Volta - 'Frances the Mute'

recently released an entirely acoustic version of their newest album, which led to their older stuff, so here we are! Their new album is cool, I like it, but it definitely is entirely different than their earlier proggy stuff. It's very heavily influenced by latin styles of all sorts, and uses more pop structures than we've come to expect, but the songs are good and the production is awesome. However, I will always have a special place in my heart for their early stuff which I grew up on, as the weird, experimental, wild nature of the band was a massive influence on me and my own songwriting. Their first full length Deloused in the Comatorium is now a classic, and a personal favorite, though the following album Frances the Mute was probably the one I listened to the most in high school as it was the first new album the band released after I got into them. Today's song is the title track, but it didn't appear at all on the original tracklisting, instead being released on various special editions and international releases, like the Japanese CD/DVD set, and a 'Best Buy' exclusive version. The actual song begins around 04:28 (typically long intro for the band, haha), and has a wild, sort of free-meter section towards the latter half. My favorite part is without a doubt the outro, the progression, the rhythmic pattern, the vocals, are all just these guys at their absolute height of creativity and performance.