The Good: Lyrics may be easily understood on most songs, Music is interesting.
The Bad: Short, Nothing audacious as far as sound and content goes.
The Basics: A very average musical experience, A Perfect Circle’s Thirteenth Step is creepy and gothic metal music without much distinction.
Back in April when Maynard James Keenan was my Artist Of The Month, I had my first series of experiences with Keenan’s second band, A Perfect Circle, with the album Thirteenth Step. This came on the heels of my hearing the Tool album 10,000 Days (click here for that review!) and the Puscifer album V Is For Vagina (click here for that review!). Thirteenth Step sounds a lot like a Tool album, save that Keenan’s vocals are most commonly presented in a higher pitch – tenor and falsetto – and the lyrics are comprehensible. Unlike every Tool and Puscifer album I have heard so far, Keenan’s lyrics – and those of his bandmates – may be easily understood.
It is the fact that the album is entirely comprehensible that earns Thirteenth Step a soft “recommend” from me. The reason I am not glowing about it the way my wife is (she’s quite happy Keenan was my Artist Of The Month) is because the album is boring. Thirteenth Step does not have a distinctive sound and not a single song on the album stands out after ten spinnings of the disc. I’ve listened to the album ten (going on eleven) times and so far, all that truly resonates are lyrics on songs like “The Nurse Who Loved Me.” It is albums like this one from A Perfect Circle that convince me that alternative rock does not necessarily have to be alternative in a way that means “different,” it just has to fail to be commercially successful, eliminating it from the designation “pop.” Thirteenth Step is troublingly average and those who love Tool or other metal bands are likely to find this album underwhelming in its sound and scope.
With a dozen tracks occupying just over fifty minutes of music, Thirteenth Step is very much the work of A Perfect Circle, at least as the band was in 2003. At that time, the band consisted of Maynard James Keenan, Billy Howerdel, Josh Freese, and Jeordi White (James Iha performed with the band live, but is not on this album) and most all of the songs were written by Keenan and Howerdel. In fact, only “The Nurse Who Loved Me” is a cover written by none of the band members. Keenan performs all of the lead vocals and the other three provide most of the instrumental accompaniment. The album was executive produced by Keenan, so this does appear to be the intended sound and style of A Perfect Circle.
My biggest problem with A Perfect Circle on Thirteenth Step is that they sound like pretty much anyone else producing metal-rock and there was nothing that made me think they were much more than a less distinct version of Tool or The Bloodhound Gang. Track to track, the songs are very typical guitar/bass/drums songs and not one of them left me with the tune in my head, thinking about it after it was done being played. And most of them sound like one another, so as one plays the album on high repeat, the experience becomes an auditory sludge of thrashing guitars, pounding drums and Keenan’s wailing vocals. It’s not bad, but none of the songs truly stand out.
Vocally, Thirteenth Step succeeds in a way none of Keenan’s other albums have resonated for me in that the vocals are easily understood. Keenan sings many of the songs in a higher register and he produced the album so the vocals may actually be heard. As a result, Keenan’s tenor and falsetto presentations offset the deep bass of the instrumental accompaniment and the result is that most of the lyrics may be understood and appreciated.
That said, Thirteenth Step is a fairly angsty album, even when it tries to be more emotionally accessible. For example, on “Pet” Keenan sings “Don't fret precious I'm here, / Step away from the window / And go back to sleep / Lay your head down child / I won't let the boogeyman come” moments before the lines turn darker like “Countin' bodies like sheep / To the rhythm of the war drums . . . Pay no mind what other voices say / They don't care about you, like I do, / Safe from pain, and truth, and choice, and other poison devils . . . Just stay with me, / safe and ignorant. . .” The world, as seen through the lines of A Perfect Circle is dark and filled with obstacles that referencing even while protecting from becomes disturbing.
Indeed, even the songs not written by the band are creepy. Take the cover “The Nurse Who Loved Me.” That song is a musical storysong, a common song type for Folk, but as near as I can tell, largely unheard of in Metal. It’s appropriately dark as it seems to be the story of a woman murdered by a patient with lines like “Say hello to the rug's topography / It holds quite a lot of interest with your face down on it . . . I'm taking her home with me all dressed in white / She's got everything I need pharmacy keys / She's falling hard for me I can see it in her eyes / She acts just like a nurse with all the other guys” (“The Nurse Who Loved Me”). Scoring drugs and killing women, that certainly makes for an atypical song and A Perfect Circle nails it in the creepiest way possible with songs like this one.
There are also songs like “Crimes” where the lyrics aren’t as important and the song is truly about the music that accompanies the few words and vocal noises in it. But just as the instrumental accompaniment is almost homogeneously dark, so too are the lyrics. This is not a peppy album and those looking for enlightenment or excitement will want to look elsewhere. Indeed, it’s hard to see – outside the emo crowd – who “You've cast your demons out / And not to pull your halo down / Around your neck and tug you off your cloud / But I'm more than just a little curious / How you're plannin' to go about makin' your amends / To the dead” (“The Noose”) is appealing to.
Perhaps this is lullabies for emo children, but it’s more indistinct than actually bad and I enjoyed not having to strain to try to hear (and fail at hearing) the lyrics being sung. Those looking for audible, if not terribly original, Maynard James Keenan will find it with A Perfect Circle’s Thirteenth Step.
The best track is “The Nurse Who Loved Me,” the low point was “Crimes.”
For other music reviews, please check out my takes on:
Bookends - Simon And Garfunkel
Minutes To Midnight - Linkin Park
Dusk And Summer - Dashboard Confessional
6/10
For other c.d. and single reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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