#365songs (106 / 365)

Probably safe to say, at this point, that many of my favorite songs are on the experimental side of accessible, or the accessible side of experimental. The Mars Volta's second album Frances the Mute was the one that grabbed me for some reason: it's 5 songs and only one is less than 10 minutes long. That song, "The Widow," I guess got some radio play with the two-minute formless noodly instrumental outro excised, but the much longer "L'Via L'Viaquez" is the album's jam.

I mostly don't go in for virtuosic prog shit, and while "L'Via" isn't devoid of it, it mostly sets aside the more show-offy sides of The Mars Volta in favor of one or two massive hooks. It doesn't matter that Cedric Bixler-Zavala is singing in Spanish because his English lyrics are just as incomprehensible to me. And speaking of which, I like that the English parts of "L'Via" are sung over the interludes that have what I'll call, out of ignorance about the most precise genre names, a more Central- or South American sound. I like the changeup in what I guess you'd call the bridge at 6:30, with the dubiously tonal guitar solo and tom-heavy drums. There's so much in this song, and Frances the Mute in general, that when they want to spend the last couple minutes of "L'Via" on a heavily processed a capella spoken-word version of the English chorus (?) and a frog-sounds outro? Sure guys, go ahead. You've earned it.