shilmafone's Full Review: Thirteenth Step by A Perfect Circle
I wasn't actually going to buy this album, but it's tough to watch punkrawka get flat-out giddy about an album I'm not going to buy. Indeed, his review pushed me off the proverbial fence, as I'm not a huge fan of A Perfect Circle's first effort, Mer de Noms. Even so, I was going to give A Perfect Circle's new effort Thirteenth Step a chance--that is, until I heard first single "Weak and Powerless", a song whose title seemed the perfect description of the music contained therein.
To be quite frank, it sounded like wussy music. Yeah, you heard me, wussy music.
Wussy music or not, Mr. Rawka's pretty selective, and when he gets excited, y'all should listen. That said, Thirteenth Step is an album that any fan of the intelligent side of rock music should be able to enjoy. Personally, I'll stop short of calling it a masterpiece, but it's certainly a step (ha! get it? step?) above Mer de Noms in terms of straight-up quality.
See, what I didn't like about Mer de Noms was the "artsiness" of it--not that "artsiness" in and of itself is a bad thing, but it seemed to be artsy without purpose. There has to be a purpose. Songs like "Rose" and "Renholder" were exercises in monotony, songs whose short length couldn't save them from the "track skip" button on my player. Thirteenth Step ups the "artsiness" level, but this time it feels like it has direction, it has that necessary purpose that can push artsiness into tolerability. What direction does it go, you ask? Deep into a dark pit of loathing and insanity, naturally. Thirteenth Step is the story of someone who grows so sick of the world around him that literal insanity ensues.
But there's a twist. More on that later.
...Clever got me this far / and tricky got me in...And with one of the greatest opening couplets I've heard in a while, the stage is set for a cynical, jaded protagonist. "The Package" is a nearly-eight-minute epic that thrives on a slow burn and massive tension buildup. Finally, at more than four minutes into the song, it explodes into a swirling mass of tremendous guitars and thunderous bass as our protagonist (I'll call our protagonist "Bob" from here on out) cracks for the first time. Listening to this song, I can see the anger spilling out of Bob's head, as Maynard James Keenan spits out the words TAKE...WHAT'S...MINE... It's a tour de force of a song, and a brilliant way to open the album.
And really, what better way to musically represent a crimson-hued view of the world than with a nigh-unfollowable rhythm? "Weak and Powerless" succeeds in spades as an album track where it never could as a single. Maynard's soaring but somehow still listless vocal is the perfect vessel for a desperate but fruitless search for something good in this world. "The Noose" takes it a step further, as suddenly Bob's ire is turned to a personal acquaintance, someone who seems to have made a life-transformation, someone who was where Bob is now, but suddenly "got better". I love these lyrics, so here's a bunch:
Recall the deeds as if they're all
Someone else’s atrocious stories
Now you stand reborn before us all
So glad to see you well
And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you to the ground
But I'm more then just a little curious
How you're planning to go about making your amends
To the dead
And then...call it aftermath, she's turning blue / such a lovely color for you as Bob's fantasies turn homicidal in "Blue". "Vanishing" puts the focus back on introspection, as the need to vanish into thin air becomes the forefront. "A Stranger" and "The Outsider" deal with Bob's impending alienation, and "Crimes" is where the final }CRACK{ takes place--we're left to guess what actually happens, as the only lyrics are Maynard's chants of One....Two....Three.... et cetera, but I can tell you this much: Bob ends up in the asylum, with a wonderfully dreamy, beatless version of Failure's already excellent "The Nurse Who Loved Me". She's got everything I need (some pills and a little cup) give you an idea of what's happened here, and it's not pretty. "Pet" is an all-out rocker that sees Bob talking to a child (who may or may or not be in his head) in some alternately comforting and threatening terms:
Lay your head down child
I won't let the boogeyman come
Count the bodies like sheep
To the rhythm of the war drums
Finally, the short interlude that is "Lullaby" (Go back to sleep...) transitions to "Gravity".
And this is the twist, so listen up.
Where so many artists (you listening, Mr. Reznor?) would be content to wallow in the insanity and just leave it at that, Thirteenth Step's Bob is stronger than that. "Gravity" is the story of someone who wants to pull himself out of the hole he's dug for himself. Catch me, heal me, lift me back up to the sun / Help me survive the bottom are not the words of a man defeated. It leaves the listener with hope for the future, and the album suddenly goes from being a tale of one man's descent into madness to a cautionary tale whose ultimate thrust details the resilience of mankind. It's a beautiful way to finish, and wraps up the album better than I had ever imagined it could be. The last words we hear are I choose to live.
It doesn't get much better than that.
Lyrically, this album hits me harder than anything released so far this year. Musically, it's pretty impressive as well, as mastermind Billy Howerdel has honed his craft to the point where this entire album has a unified sound, a glue that holds the album together without making it feel monotonous. The whole thing ebbs and flows, using subtlety in favor of straight-up power to get its point across. New bassist Jeordie Orsborne White (a.k.a. Twiggy Ramirez of Marilyn Manson) holds down the fort with some impressive low-end, and Josh Freese does a solid job on drums of keeping up with all of Howerdel and Keenan's quirky rhythm changes. In a surprise guest appearance, Jarboe of The Swans kicks in some vocals on two tracks, a pretty keen substitute for the female flavor that Paz Lenchantin took when she left the band.
And for those Pumpkins fans out there wondering what Mr. James Iha is up to, well, he's nowhere to be found here--his membership is restricted (for now at least) to the A Perfect Circle live show.
All of this praise probably should add up to a big fat five-star rating for Thirteenth Step, right? I'm sorry, but I just can't bring myself to do it. For all of the album's brilliance, it still manages to bore me every once in a while. There are times when I just want to yell at the CD player, "Get on with it!" Maybe I'm just not a patient person, but I've heard plenty of atmospheric music that doesn't bore me in the slightest, so I'm not putting this on me. The great, classic albums should never bore me, and that's why Thirteenth Step gets knocked down to four stars. Even so, it's an impressive album, one that anyone looking to find some intelligent mainstream rock music would do well to seek out and buy.
Get it now, before it passes you by. Bob would want it that way.
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