FRANCES THE MUTE

This is an excellent album. Listening to this reminds me of Yes during their peak, particularly Relayer period. Very fast, high energy playing, sudden changes in dynamics, frantic and chaotic, yet still melodic, and high register and very powerful vocals with good harmonization. There is also quite a bit of the spacy element here, as the band experiments with soundscapes and sound effects. One reviewer said it was too excessive, I on the contrary feel it was used exceptionally well. The Miranda song particularly uses it effectively. There are many styles of music incorporated here.

The album starts out softly with a melodic acoustic movement called Sarcophagi. It's very reminiscent of Led Zeppelin's Battle of Evermore or Yes's And You And I. But one minute into the first song, the next section, Umbilical Symbols, bursts in loud fast and furious. Not since Yes's Relayer have I heard such controlled chaos, crazy tempos, and busy frantic instruments. The vocals on top hold it all together, and the harmony during the chorus is both beautiful and powerful. This chorus becomes the theme for the entire album, and is actually reprised at the end of album before going back into Sarcophagi.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Once the first epic ends it quiets down again, and we get some sounds. The second song, The Widow, is the most radio friendly of the songs, as I've heard it before on the radio. A good catchy song that quickly goes back to its progressive roots with some spacy keyboard sounds. L'Via is a spanish song, that is both fast and loud, and soft and peaceful. It moves back and forth between these moods, with a slow latin dance number serving as the soft section. It eventually ends with this section, and soon goes into what I think is the best song on the album, the Miranda epic.

This is where it starts to get confusing. There are 12 tracks on this cd, yet there are only 5 songs listed on the back album cover (with no track numbers associated with them). I assumed that the last two songs were broken up into their movement sections, but upon reading the lyrics, I noticed that this was not the case. Indeed, track 4 is Miranda in its entirety, and the rest of the tracks are the Cassandra song. Still, that doesn't account for the 3 extra tracks. To make things more confusing there is a sixth three part song listed on the inside of the cd called 'Frances the Mute', with lyrics written that aren't heard on the album (I may have to listen more closely again to see if I can hear them). I later assumed that this song occurs somewhere in 'Cassandra'. I deduced, by reading the lyrics, that Frances the Mute actually occurs after 'Multiple Spouse Wounds' Section but before the 'Sarcophagi' reprise, which accounts for the three extra tracks. But it still doesn't explain the missing lyrics. Perhaps someone more in the know can explain this track discrepency. Nevertheless, Both these epics are incredible, although I felt 'Cassandra' went on a bit longer than it needed to.

The fact that this album was successful makes me very happy. With bands like Radiohead and Tool growing in success, and bands like Mars Volta up and coming, there is hope for progressive rock yet.