A Perfect Circle
Virgin, 2004
In November 2004 A Perfect Circle released their third album eMOTIVe – a mix of anti-war song covers of three decades and original songs, deliberately released on the US Election day. The band's fans and critics split up in two camps of enthusiastic supporters of the unconventional album and rigorous objectors to their unusual diction. Together with his former engineer Billy Howerdel, Maynard James Keenan – front man of the successful band Tool – formed A Perfect Circle and released a widely acclaimed debut album, Mer De Norms, in 2000. This review is not going to deal with Tool since A Perfect Circle is neither a side project of Maynard Keenan nor a spin-off of Tool; it is an independent band, which within a very short time created a unique and distinctive stile.
Their last album eMOTIVe consists of 12 tracks, including two original songs of A Perfect Circle. The other ten songs are covers of well-known anti-war anthems, like e.g. Depeche Mode's "People Are People", John Lennon's "Imagine" or Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On". The album cover is pretty much overcrowded with anti-war, anti-capitalism symbols – a huge, ruinous concrete peace sign in front of a burning skyline, sheep and old World War II posters.
As Maynard himself defines it on the band's website, it is "a collection of songs about war, peace, love and greed".
Hardly any popular musician managed or made the attempt to produce a sensible concept album in the last years. A Perfect Circle dared to tackle the venture of covering a number of broadly known songs and, furthermore, rearranged them in a way that in some cases moves far away from the original. Thanks to their bold interpretations of classics like "Freedom Of Choice" or "Gimme Gimme Gimme" they managed to create a coherent album with songs that in the rough only connects their critical content. Moreover, Maynard's exceptional voicing, which he adopts to the plurality of stiles represented on eMOTIVe, is a bonding factor that should not be ignored.
However, the two original A Perfect Circle songs stick out due to their in-depth arrangement and production. The only new original "Passive" is a more distinctly composed rock song, which rather reminds of their previous albums than any of the others and has often been appraised as the only valuable track by fans and critics.
All the other songs display that protest does not have to equal aggression and volume. It seems like they wanted to keep away from unreflecting head-nodding and instead take their listeners on a journey of low angst and depression. Reflecting the United States' current political climate, the album does not shout encouragement to riots in the streets but instead emphasizes a feeling of being paralyzed, which sometimes climaxes in threat and disquiet, e.g. in the death-march "Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm Of The War Drums", an industrial hymn in a post-industrial era. Building the listeners up to a high, leaving them in an awkward tension until they are finally redeemed by the smooth harmonies of the a-cappella-version of "Fiddle And The Drum" is nothing comparable to the two preceding albums of the band. As a matter of course the odd mood and the adoption of electronic beats (e.g. in "Let's Have A War") were hard to handle for die-hard rock fans who favour the sound of strumming guitars and therefore requested "more fire" from Maynard and Billy.
However, to create a valuable, "authentic" rock album does not seem to be what A Perfect Circle were aiming at. They metamorphosed some songs of hope into a statement about the revolution that never was and probably never will happen. Since the band and especially their front man Maynard already verified their talent and capability of creating complex and carefully elaborated songs they used this album to take a position. Some of the songs might seem to be a bit platitudinous – still it is a valuable statement which, as Adrian M in an internet forum denotes, communicates "Look, nothing's changed since these songs were written, and that's plain old wrong."