Thirteenth Stepby A Perfect Circle

This is album number two from Maynard James Keenan’s other band. This album defenatly takes a step forward from A Perfect Circle’s debut release. The music is very atmospheric and quite chilling with the mix of heavy and soft moments flowing from one to the other nicely. The album has the same power has A Perfect Circle’s previous album (and all of Tool’s albums) to lull the listener into a numb haze surrounded by the sounds. Maynard James Keenan is as brilliant a vocalist as he ever was and makes an astronomical contribution to the overall result of the music. In most parts the songs don’t standout themselves but rather fit together to create a continuous long-playing piece.

‘Vanishing’ is a particular highlight which sees Maynard using his voice almost as a background instrument with the other sounds being more dominant. ‘A stranger’ is a striped back quiet yet powerful piece. ‘The nurse who loved me’ is a massive contrast to the rest of the album sounding almost like something you’d expect to hear of an Eel’s album. This isn’t a bad thing, on the contrary it’s a very beautiful and touching piece. It does however make the heavy blast of ‘pet’ sound a bit out of place.

This is yet another brilliant release from A Perfect Circle. Over the twelve tracks they push many musical boundaries resulting and a very powerful and atmospheric long player.