Thirteenth Step

by

A Perfect Circle

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The modern radio era is dominated by bands that fancy themselves latter-day Sex Pistols but sound more like bad Green Day knockoffs. Into this musical climate, A Perfect Circle has injected a potent breath of fresh air with its sophomore effort, Thirteenth Step.

The record doesn't overpower the listener. It has a quietness, a subtlety that makes it nearly impossible to fully appreciate on first listen. But with each subsequent listen, its layers are uncovered, slowly and deliciously. It's a masterpiece that comes full circle on the promise of the band's debut, Mer de Noms.

Thirteenth Step can be taken as a concept album of sorts, with each of the twelve songs exploring a different aspect of psychology and addiction. Opener "The Package" draws you in with quiet guitars and beats and Maynard James Keenan's gorgeous vocals. He's an addict looking for his next fix, and we're along for the ride as the music and voice go from an urgent whisper to a desperate growl and back again. It sets the stage for the journey to come.

The first single, "Weak and Powerless," is a standout. Like much of the record, it's clearly influenced by the new wave of the late 80's and early 90's -- there are points at which Keenan's voice seems to channel that of the Cure's Robert Smith -- yet strikingly original. It's disarming, with a haunting quality that carries throughout the record.

The musicianship is impressive. From band founder/guitarist Billy Howerdel to drummer Josh Freese to new bassist Jeordie White, there isn't a weak link. White, in particular, is a revelation. His confident, driving bass lines are just the right counterpart to Freese's rhythms; who knew that such a fine musician lurked within the former Twiggy Ramirez? The music and vocals both prove capable of holding back when appropriate, making the moments when they explode all the more powerful. The band is tight, skilled and creative.

As we've come to expect from Keenan in APC or his other project, Tool, the lyrics are cryptic, metaphorical and beautiful. They are consistently powerful, intelligent and thought-provoking as they explore the darker subject matter.

Among the quieter, more atmospheric tracks, "The Noose" stands out with its haunting guitars and poignant lyrics. The band showcases its sense of humor on Failure cover "The Nurse Who Loved Me," with Keenan stepping into character as the sad, delusional patient. The song is stark and surpising. String instruments provide an understated, elegant sound, and Keenan conveys just the right vulnerability and pathos.

There are heavier songs, too, and they are some of the best on the record. "The Outsider" is the most powerful, musically and lyrically, with Keenan's angry vocals lashing out and tearing loose. "Pet" can be taken as a political commentary on post-9/11 America and the war on terror; the music hits just the right notes from heavy to scary to gentle, to coincide with the alternately reassuring, commanding and ironic tone of the lyrics and vocals.

Perhaps the record as a whole is the recovery, the thirteenth step. It lingers in your mind and your soul, long after it closes with the oddly uplifting lines, "Heal me/lift me back up to the sun/I choose to live."

Few people can divide a room more quickly than that little darling, Maynard James Keenan. What he lacks in likeability he makes up for in charisma, in that weird, semi-militant, Jung-spouting pseudo-celebrity manner that only Keenan or a Chuck Palahniuk character can manage. The irony of Keenanites debating the angelic qualities and deific power of his voice while Keenan howls "F*ck your god!" (or some reasonable facsimile) over the din of tidal wave metal riffage cannot be overlooked. But enough about Tool, and Maynard, for that matter: the real man to blame for Thirteenth Step is Billy Howerdel, the only other remaining member from A Perfect Circle's original line-up.

Howerdel, whose personal history as a songwriting roadie went a long way towards building him a house of credibility before the release of A Perfect Circle's first album, has fallen prey to the time-honored, signature sophomore slump, adhering to the cliché philosophy of "a lifetime for the first, two years for the follow-up," consequences be damned. Admittedly, the entire project has been in turmoil with departures, arrivals, and pretty much everyone treating the "not a side project" with the relative indifference shown to "side projects."

The record opens with the metaphorical rubbing of sleep from the eyes that is "The Package," so distant in tone and mood from the kick in the balls that was "The Hollow" as to be even more jarring to the listener. Using atmosphere as a crutch before bringing down a lackluster riff about four minutes in, "The Package," while a failure in execution, succeeds in at least one other area: as the first track, it sets the tone for the record. And, to clarify for all the Lateralus fans, that tone is called "boring."

This is not to say that being brooding and atmospheric can't be entertaining or good, or that decibels should be a universal measurement of quality (see APC's first record, for example) -- it's just that no one chooses to listen to Slint's Spiderland during a $200 seaweed wrap treatment (using seaweed harvested off the coast of Brittany in France). Thirteenth Step spends much more time brooding in the Enya sense than in that of Mogwai, or, say, A Perfect Circle. "Orestes" and "Magdalena" had definite moody shapes and colors. Contrasted with the meandering, dismelodious "Vanishing," or "Crimes" and "Lullaby" (the signature related-to-a-Maynard-James-Keenan-project throwaway tracks that make a show of not even attempting musicality in favor of "atmospherics" or "art"), the lead-off single "Weak and Powerless" makes good on multiple meanings of "lead-off single" in its catchy verse-chorus-verse-ity. It's a tale of woe so old and familiar, you'd think by now they'd have come up with a 12-step plan for those unable to cope.

"Blue" opens with a weirdly-toned and tuned electric guitar riff that broods along into a haunting chorus, making for one of A Perfect Circle's best songs; other standouts include "The Outsider," with its simple riff and unyielding heaviness topped off with Howerdel's howling Les Paul into a Marshall stack lead lines, and, yes, "Weak and Powerless."

"The Nurse Who Loved Me," originally by Failure, makes a ProTools-spackled appearance on Thirteenth Step (as a "tribute" to the original; see MIDI files of early-to-mid-'90s pop-rock songs) with all the grace of a clean-shaven bearded lady. Anyone crazy enough to be at the circus the night before probably isn't surprised, per se, but the bearded lady is just so damned BORING without her beard. While the song's concept stays relatively intact, right down to the way the violins in APC's version start to sound skewed and drug-addled toward the end, its soul is predictably missing. It's hard to ruin a good melody (thanks Greg), but knocking the wind out of it is easy. "The Nurse" is a good example of what's wrong with this record: reliance on a digitized sound that rapes the life out of the actual instruments being used, creating a sound akin to gothic elevator music.

Look at the killboard. Six aimless dirges, one elevator-music-esque rape of a melody, and five highly-listenable songs does not a consistent album make.

The year 2003 is, for the most part, the Year of the Health Spa for overtly successful and acceptably artistic heavy metal. The self-titled Deftones tripped over its own muddied 7-string guitars; Zwan developed stigmata so noticeable and frightening as to scare off droves of mortal men made uncomfortable by Corgan's constant deific name-dropping and creepy allusions to fairy tales in interviews; and then Thirteenth Step landed on our doorstep full of promises but vexingly D.O.A., adding yet more support for the old battlegrunt of "rock is dead." Well, it isn't yet, but it is definitely suffering from Alzheimer's, or at the very least some mild kalopsia. And frankly, I'm not loving it.

It's still better than "Emotive," though. Good lord.