The problem with The Widow is The Mars Volta didn't mean for you to hear it like this - It's about context, you see, and to listen to it as a standalone single is like tearing a page out of a thousand-page epic, telling you to read the first and second paragraphs and asking you to pass judgement on the book.

Because The Widow is part of the band's staggeringly ambitious Frances The Mute, a 77-minute, five-suite prog-rock extravaganza, and for all of Frances' relative merits (and there are many arguments raging between those who love and those who loathe it), it really does deserve to be heard as a whole.

Still, as a pallet cleansing sorbet sadly snatched from its rightful position between the courses of a banquet, it's pretty tasty. Starting small and dejected, it writhes around before soaring to an exhilaratingly swollen chorus then manages to find time enough to shoe-in a climactic Pink Floyd fiddly-twiddly guitar solo. Undeniably good, it would just sound better back where it belonged.