Easy to get into, easy to like
Written: Jan 29 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Peaceful, Calming, and any other synonyms for those words you can think of
Cons: It's not 100% consistant; a few tracks don't work
The Bottom Line: An album that's a little "different," but shouldn't be that difficult to get into.
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| major7th's Full Review: Thirteenth Step by A Perfect Circle |
Maynard James Keenan obviously wasn’t looking to make a band that sounded like Tool with his side project, A Perfect Circle. But that makes sense: if he wanted to write Tool songs, he would’ve done them with Tool.
Instead, “Thirteenth Step” is a collection of soft, soothing tracks, with an emphasis on beauty rather than bombast. At the same time, there’s quite a bit of room for variety, from the more deliberate “Weak & Powerless” to the more delicate “Noose;” a dichotomy that they pull off without the use of heavy or distorted guitars. In fact, a particular highlight is the warm climax that “The Noose” works its way up to, with swelling strings and Maynard emphatically repeating the line “your halo’s slipping down.”
Oftentimes, the album manages to convey intense and powerful emotions without ever resorting to doing anything heavy, which is good because I don’t think anything could have done more to destroy this release overall than a hard rock number like “Judith,” from Mer de Noms (not that that wasn’t a good song). Occasionally, the album adds a little bit of distortion on “Outsider” and “Pet,” but it’s always done tastefully. In other words, the small amount of heaviness that they do add doesn’t detract from the melodic nature of the album.
I hate to use the word “atmospheric” here, but that’s pretty much the best term I can come up with. The intricate vocal melodies are layered in with acoustic and some clean electric guitars, and often plenty of strings and keyboards to go along with it. “The Nurse Who Loved Me” adds some additional vocal distortion/echo effects that really compliment the strings well.
All in all, Thirteenth Step works best listened to as a single unit. Admittedly, not all of it works, the two instrumentals break the flow of the album rather than adding to it, while tracks like “Blue” tend to be more monotonous than engaging.
Like I said, though, Perfect Circle manages to pull off a good variety of moods while working almost entirely in the realm of soft/ambient music that, for the most part, can’t even really be considered rock. But, at the same time this same fact makes for a very pleasant listen.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
major7th
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Reviews written: 36
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Just started a humor website with some other kids at school. Check it out! http://www.clunkline.com
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