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The Mars Volta’s Frances the Mute Might Be The Most Unsettling Commercial Album Ever Recorded
- Andrew Munnik
- May 5
- 4 min read
As an album, The Mars Volta's Frances The Mute is seen amongst audiophiles as strange and unsettling, albeit powerful and moving. Created from a place of grief and inspired by a dark sign left behind for the band, it’s an uncomfortable foray into the depths of despair, constantly seeking to displace the audience. Yet, despite this intentional estranging, the album has left a palpable impact on the industry, not to mention the fans of The Mars Volta. The journey of discovery that runs through the album is not necessarily easy or fun to get lost in, but the final product is undeniably moving and equally unsettling.
Exploring the Dark Inspiration of The Mars Volta’s Frances the Mute
Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta was influenced by many sources, but one profoundly shaped its sound and the impression it left on listeners.
The release of Frances the Mute was earmarked to become the group’s magnum opus, coming between tours that saw an explosion in the group’s popularity.
Before this, the members of The Mars Volta worked various other jobs to subsidise their dreams, including Jeremy Ward’s time working as a repo man.
This is where the heart of Frances the Mute was born. In his time in repo, Jeremy Ward came across an anonymous and abandoned diary, feeling a profound connection to its contents. The words contained therein, speaking to grief, misery and the struggles of life in poverty, drove the band to create an album around it.
Specifically, it detailed a young orphan’s journey to find their birth parents. Thus, Frances the Mute was created, with its very foundations dipped in melancholy and woe.
Tragically, Jeremy Ward passed away just months before the release of the album, never seeing his inspirations take their final form. Ward’s death, however, served to further catalyse the grief that ran through the album. Already unsettling and full of discomfort, this influence pushed the album over the line, leading to an experience that seeks to probe the lives of their audience and leave them with a sense of unease.
Sweeney Todd, Oedipus and The Mars Volta
Listening to the album, it’s easy to get turned around in the sprawling world created therein. A deeper listen, however, reveals a depth of despair to the tale that seems to speak to the tragedy that preceded the album’s release.
In essence, Frances the Mute tells the story of an orphan searching for his birth parents, although that sounds far more light-hearted than the story which actually unfolds.
In practice, that young orphan grows up to be a drug dealer and a murderer, his life overcome by a need to exact revenge on those who assaulted his mother.
This inquisition transforms the orphan into a warped, antagonistic version of himself, one whose lack of moral consideration becomes his ultimate downfall. In the end, the orphan’s actions lead to the death of his mother (to whom he sells drugs) and the murder of several innocents in his crusade. In doing so, he becomes a symbol for the recurring cycle of violence inflicted upon children, representing themes which have been expressed in literature since ancient Greece.
The Performative Discomfort of Frances
the Mute
When looking into the discomfort curated within Frances the Mute, it’s not the lyrics or themes alone that carry this sense of despair and discomfort.
Through careful editing and purposefully estranging recording techniques, the Mars Volta set out to create an album that would unsettle their audience. Ambient sound is the first and most prevalent of the mechanisms used to create this unease.
Coupled with quickly shifting and highly contrasting tempos, these strange soundscapes sit within the audience, leaving them to think and seethe. One can never get too complacent with the tone or energy of a particular track, either, because the one that follows summons up a completely different sensation. Thus, one is constantly on edge while listening, which makes for a challenging experience.
There are many more elements that induce this discomfort, but the most eclectic of them comes in the form of a hidden song.
Just when you might have thought the album was over, there’s one more track hidden from you by the label, a final surprise to keep you guessing.
As for why The Mars Volta reached for this discomfort at all, one can never be entirely sure. One argument could be made that, as a punk or at the very least punk-adjacent group, they simply sought to mess with people.
Another reading could suggest they were attempting to capture the nihilistic discomfort of the early 2000s, where the entire world waited on edge. Whatever the case may be, it’s clear that Frances the Mute, while worthy of the title ‘hidden gem,’ might just be the most unsettling commercial album ever released.
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