The Mars Volta: Frances The Mute (3LP, indie exclusive) [CLOUDS HILL]

Why you'll love it

This indie exclusive 3LP set is remastered from 96 kHz/24-bit mixes, every side ends in a locked groove to keep the album's segues intact, and side six carries etched artwork. Classic Rock named it one of the 10 essential progressive rock albums of its decade.

This edition

• 3LP set
• Indie exclusive
• Remastered
• 96 kHz/24-bit mixes
• Locked grooves on every side
• Etched sixth side

About the album

Plenty of bands have made concept albums. The Mars Volta made one about a diary that never existed. The story went that sound artist Jeremy Ward found it in a car he was repossessing; years later Omar Rodriguez-Lopez admitted the concept came from a film script he'd written, and the diary tale was a tribute to Ward, who died in 2003.

Rodriguez-Lopez produced, Cedric Bixler-Zavala sings as if his life depends on it, and the band folds dub, ambient, Latin music and jazz into some of the most ambitious prog of the 2000s. "The Widow" is the closest thing to a ballad, "L'Via L'Viaquez" swings between hard rock and salsa, and "Cassandra Gemini" sprawls over more than half an hour. Bassist Juan Alderete and percussionist Marcel Rodriguez-Lopez make their first appearance.

It turned up on a stack of 2005 best-of lists and came No. 18 in Q and Mojo's 40 Cosmic Rock Albums. Thanks to those locked grooves, the record waits patiently for you at the end of every side, which is more than can be said for us when the kettle boils.

Also at Kops: more The Mars Volta on vinyl · browse Alternative

Listen

On Clouds Hill (cat# CH183), a reissue of the 2005 album.