Throwback Thursday: The Mars Volta

Over the weekend I saw Antemasque play here in Austin and it totally got me reminiscing about the days when Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala were all in for The Mars Volta.  Now, that’s not to say Antemasque sound like TMV (there’s just a light touch of those days in the duo’s new endeavor), but seeing Omar and Cedric on a stage together did the trick to get my brain stuck on their most recent of now defunct bands.

Obviously, we could revisit De-loused In The Comatorium and call it a day, but instead I say we take a look at Frances The Mute.  The band’s sophomore full length is probably their most bloated and ridiculous effort with its plethora of ambient noises and obnoxiously long songs (the glorious Cassandra Gemini is whopping 32 minutes long), but I still love it to no end.  The Widow is a slick number, L’via L’Viaquez will always be one of my favorite TMV songs, and Cygnus … Vismund Cygnus is a wildly creative effort.  I only wish they had cut back on some of the random noises so that they could have fit the title track on the disc, as it’s pretty rad.  Oh well.  In any case, have fun revisiting it!

PS – Speaking of the title track that the band was forced to make into a b-side due to time constraints, in college I went in and edited out all of the ambient bits so that I could burn it all on one disc.  Yes, I was a huge nerd.