A Perfect Circle Thirteenth Step CD

A Perfect Circle: Maynard James Keenan (vocals, gourd); Billy Howerdel (guitar, piano, bass, programming, background vocals); Troy Van Leeuwen (guitar); Jeordie White (bass); Josh Freese (drums, percussion).
Personnel: Billy Howerdel (vocals, guitar); Jarboe, Maynard James Keenan (vocals); Danny Lohner, Troy Van Leeuwen (guitar); Josh Freese (drums, background vocals); Devo Keenan, Jeordie White (background vocals).
Audio Mixer: Andy Wallace.
Photographers: Dean Karr; Billy Howerdel.
Three years after the release of its debut Mer de Noms, A Perfect Circle's Thirteenth Step sees the light of day. By that time, Troy van Leeuwen and Paz Lenchantin had left and been replaced by bassist Jeordie Osborne White, formerly of Marilyn Manson, and guitarist James Iha, formerly of the Smashing Pumpkins (though he doe not appear on the album). While van Leeuwen appear on part of the set, guitarist Danny Lohner helped out after he departed. Amazingly, despite the changes, the sound is still very much the creation of Billy Howerdel with the unmistakable vocal of Maynard Keenan from Tool. Produced by Howerdel and mixed by the inimitable Andy Wallace, Thirteenth Step is a moodier, tenser, and more atmospheric (if that is possible) recording than its predecessor. Written mostly by Howerdel and Keenan, the songs traverse a particular associated with surrender, loss, having the nature of a person stripped away, and turning in the twilight of those feelings toward a kind of slow transformation into something that can only be called "other." There are no easy outs and no easy answers, only hard questions throughout "Weak and Powerless," where surrender is necessary but far from desired. The title bitingly refers to the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, but this is not your average recovery outing. Tracks like "Blue," "Vanishing," and "Lullaby" (one of two tracks featuring the amazing Jarboe on vocals) feature a kind of barely restrained menace caught in a trap by rock & roll vulnerability. The wide dynamic swathes that were so prominent on the band's debut are all but absent here. The squalling guitars have taken a backseat to carefully crafted melodies where atmospherics are maximized and pulled taut over the listener. While not a radical departure from Mer de Noms, there is a real progression here. However, the explosive, heavier-than-heavy rock-ism of A Perfect Circle is so well known for it is readily evidenced on cuts such as "The Outsider" and "Pet." As moods shapeshift from the sepia-toned murk of "The Package" and "The Noose," the over the top hard rock to the Baroquely scaled "The Nurse Who Loved Me" and "Gravity," with its beautiful guitar effects and crystalline bassline, the listener becomes aware of just how much water has traveled under A Perfect Circle's bridge. The Thirteenth Step is the sound of a musical and lyrical maturity that normally doesn't occur until a band's third or fourth albums. Lyrically, musically, sonically, the Thirteenth Step is proof positive that mainstream rock has plenty of life and vision left in it. ~ Thom Jurek
With its sophomore effort, THIRTEENTH STEP, A Perfect Circle permanently sheds any clinging notions of being a Tool side-project. Although Maynard James Keenan's plaintive vocals immediately conjure up thoughts of his other outfit, APC distinguishes itself by furthering the melodic elements present on the group's first outing, MER DE NOMS. "The Package" starts things off slowly, with a foreboding guitar line and minimal drum cadence that gradually build into a full-blown Sabbath-like dirge. Carried along by the fluid bass playing of Jeordie White (formerly known as Twiggy Ramirez of Marilyn Manson), "The Noose" gives a tip of the hat to the Cure's gloomiest work, while White and guitarist Billy Howerdel create an entrancingly chiming bass/guitar tapestry on "Blue."
Though many of the album's tracks surge with APC's powerful metal riffs, the folky "A Stranger" and the lush "The NurseRolling Stone (10/2/03, p.116) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...The band's second album, THIRTEENTH STEP, sounds more like the dusky thrum of DISINTEGRATION-era Cure than it does any of the members' previous bands..."
Entertainment Weekly (9/19/03, pp.86-7) - "...Frontman James Maynard Keenan sounds as elliptically tortured as ever....his band's winding, off-kilter rhythms and contrapunctal guitar riffs create an omnious atmosphere..." - Rating: B
Q (11/03, p.105) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Keenan's voice is naked and clean....[The songs] affirm that Keenan is more than capable of writing bewitchingly unique songs..."
Mojo (Publisher) (11/03, p.131) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...The frisson of anxiety crackles, brought to nervous pitch by fretful trash-can drumming, pomp rock guitar and disquieting and pervasive bass..."