CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States
There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
Profile continued . . .
Review of A Perfect Circle, Thirteenth Step and eMOTIVe
this entry brought to you by pj harvey, "man-size sextet"
I'm disappointed with A Perfect Circle.
Their debut, Mer De Noms was such a breath of fresh air in the world of alterna-hard rock. A sensitive, introspective concept album of sorts about specific relationships with specific women in singer Maynard James Jeenan's life, it was a beautiful, yet still rough-around-the-edges record that did more than justify the existence of the band in the same world as Tool, Keenan's other, more-famous band, it was an excellent record in its own right. This wasn't just a Tool side-project and it wasn't just a collaboration with main songwriter Billy Howerdel. This was a band that could and did stand on its own legs.
So then, what went wrong with Thirteenth Step, their second album? Some Tool fans will raise their eyebrows at that statement and say there is nothing wrong with it. In fact, they might argue, it's better than Mer De Noms. The problem is that, from a Tool perspective, it is a better record. The songs are much more bass-heavy (thanks in part to ex-Marilyn Manson and current Nine Inch Nailer Jeordie White). The songs start to dabble in "extra long" lengths-- the opening track, "The Package", breaks the 7 minute barrier. The songs are more abstract and less personal than before. Hell, the video for the lead single "Weak and Powerless" features a creepy otherworldly chick throwing snakes, and may as well have been directed by Adam Jones from Tool. This might be fine and dandy for those fans waiting for a stopgap between proper Tool albums, but what about those of us who like Tool just fine, and don't see a need to listen to what amounts to Tool Jr? It's as if Howerdel couldn't help touring with his lead singer without copping more of that style. Or maybe it's an inferiority complex. Or maybe it's all Keenan's doing.
Worse than the identity crisis, though, is the fact that the album feels incomplete. "The Vanishing" sounds like a remix to a better song. "Criminals" is a pointless sketch of an instrumental that comes nowhere near the haunting beauty of "Renholder", the instrumental off the previous album. There's an oddly chosen cover of the band Failure's "The Nurse Who Loved Me" that feels as if the lyrics were recorded without the benefit of knowing what the music sounded like. Elsewhere, Maynard's lyrics feel less thought-out. It's not that there are no winners here. The opener, "The Package", is a snarling, grinding confession on addiction. "Weak and Powerless" and "The Noose" are the kind of dreamy, poetic rock songs A Perfect Circle are great at. And although there's nothing here with as much punch as Mer De Noms's "Judith", "Pet" and "The Outsider" are teeth-gritting, brow-furling fist clinchers sure to please crowds.
If Thirteenth Step is a good but incomplete album with an identity crisis, their follow-up, eMOTIVe (as it's spelled on the album cover) doesn't feel like an album at all.
In terms of simply enjoying good music, there's nothing really wrong with a covers album. It's your favorite band playing their favorite songs. What could go wrong? And in A Perfect Circle's case, they do it the right way, adding their own spin to the songs, often rewriting them to the point where, aside from the lyrics, they are unrecognizable. Unfortunately, most covers albums feel like contract fulfillment, and this is no exception. eMOTIVe just feels lazy, even though the individual songs are rewritten very well. The covers chosen are all protest songs and in this moment, right now, collectively, they mean a lot. And individually, most of these songs will always be very meaningful. But here, in this collection, together, will only be relevant today. In a few years this will be lacking the immediacy, and worse, any sense of an identity.
For another thing, the album has one original song, "Passive", which is actually a left-over from a failed project with Trent Reznor, and feels like a toss-off reserved for soundtracks (no wonder, then, that it found its way in Constantine). Then, for some reason, there's a remix of a single from Thirteenth Step. Yes, "Pet" was an anti-war song, so "Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums" fits the theme of the record. But it works further into stripping eMOTIVe of its legitimacy. To put it simply, although I'm definitely down with the idea of releasing a record as a protest to the war in Iraq and our current President, this one doesn't really need to exist.
The thing is, Billy Howerdel remains a talented man who has a unique guitar sound and knows how to write a good song, derivative of his favorite band or not. And Maynard still has the best, most distinctive voice in all of rock music, and his lyrics are always cryptically poetic. What disappoints me with A Perfect Circle after their brilliant, lucid debut, is that the band is further and further losing what made them unique in the first place, and becoming what annoys most people about side projects: a place to play material the main band didn't have the time to persue.
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with love from CRS @ 7:06 PM
1 Comments:
I'll have to agree with you on APC's latest album. There only a couple of songs that I can really get into. I wasn't a huge fan of Weak and Powerless as their first single but their songs Pet and The outsider I enjoyed. I saw APC live and when they did vanishing and blue, it sounded so much better live than on the record. The song they covered The nurse that loved me, was great live cause it wasn't the studio version. They had the singer from The Year of the Rabbit sing that song with them since he sang that song I believe his old band Failure.
