| | A Perfect Circle Thirteenth Step CD A Perfect Circle Discography of CDs
 (132 Customer Reviews)
Though many of the album's tracks surge with APC's powerful metal riffs, the folky "A Stranger" and the lush "The Nurse Who Loved Me" both feature Keenan's voice supported by a gorgeous bed of strings and little else. A cycle that touches on themes of corruption, despair, and redemption, THIRTEENTH STEP is brought to a fitting conclusion by "Gravity," a powerful song that captures both the dark and light aspects of this fascinating band.
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."
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).
Rolling 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..." Thirteenth Step Music | List Price | $18.98 (You save $7.69) | | Category | Rock/Pop Albums, Rock CDs, Pop, Heavy Metal, Alternative | | Label | Virgin | | Orig Year | 2003 | | All Time Sales Rank |  882  | | CD Universe Part number | 6021408 | | Catalog number | 80918 | | Discs | 1 | | Release Date | Sep 16, 2003 | | Studio/Live | Studio | | Mono/Stereo | Stereo | | Producer | Billy Howerdel | | Engineer | Billy Howerdel | | Personnel | Josh Freese - drums, percussion
Maynard James Keenan - vocals, gourd
Troy Van Leeuwen - guitar
Billy Howerdel - guitar, piano, bass, programming, background vocals
Jeordie White - bass
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A Perfect Circle Thirteenth Step Songs Thirteenth Step Music Review Purchase Thirteenth Step CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Tool Aenima CD (1996)
Thirteenth Step
 $12.29   
AENIMA was nominated for a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Recording Package. "Aenima" won the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.
On its second full-length album, this hard-rocking quartet delivers 15 tracks of unrelenting aggression and focused intensity. Rather than overwhelm with huge sonic washes of guitar and booming drums, Tool employs a propulsive, snaky approach that makes use of undulating rhythms and clipped, percussive guitar riffs. Maynard James Keenan's vocals follow suit, opting for a heavily processed slow burn instead of the post-grunge bellow favored by so many hard-rock bands. Instead of flailing uncontrollably in all directions, the group's raw, energetic sound is tightly directed for maximum impact.
On songs like "Stinkfist," Keenan rails against injustice while the band churns mercilessly ...
| | A Perfect Circle Mer De Noms CD (2000)
Thirteenth Step
$11.39 
Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan offers up something to fill the collective void of fans eagerly awaiting a follow up to AENIMA. Keenan teamed with Tool guitar tech and A Perfect Circle guitarist/composer Billy Howerdel for MER DE NOMS, which is both a band effort and an engaging hard rock album, recorded while Tool renegotiated with their label and other band members took a break. But don't be fooled; A Perfect Circle is more than a one-off side project.
The band isn't nearly as brutal as Tool; the musical textures are instead spacious and melodic. Keenan maintains his brooding, emotionally charged vocal style and his knack for conjuring bleak imagery. The track most comparable to Tool's music, "Rose," utilizes rise-and-fall dynamics and unpredictably breaks away to gentle strings, while "Judith" (the album's title is French for "sea of names," hence the song titles), explores free thought and warns against blind faith, and "Orestes" departs from the predominant ...
| | Tool Lateralus CD (2000)
Thirteenth Step
$13.09
"Schism" won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.
Approaching Tool's LATERALUS with a casual ear would be a careless endeavor, to say the least. The sheer magnitude of the musical and emotional textures is as heady as it is primal. Standing out as one of the defining traits of the Tool sound is Justin Chancellor's hauntingly melodic bass playing, which often launches into a role reversal with the mountainous guitar work of Adam Jones. The best examples of said phenomenon are found in "The Grudge" and "Reflection." Drummer Danny Carey slips easily into the pocket, fearlessly tackling odd time signatures and tasty percussion like ...
| | A Perfect Circle Emotive CD (2004)
Thirteenth Step
$11.39 
For EMOTIVE, their third full-length album, A Perfect Circle offers up a covers-heavy collection that includes a number of protest songs. What's most striking about this set is the way in which the group reworks pop classics. In the hands of frontman Maynard James Keenan and company, John Lennon's "Imagine" becomes a foreboding lament, and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" is transformed into an oddly soothing, nearly ambient song. Other standout tracks include a lullaby-like, electronics-laced take on Depeche Mode's "People Are People" and a gently melodic version of "When the Levee Breaks" (almost totally unrecognizable from Led Zeppelin's revered rendition). EMOTIVE also ...
| | Porcupine Tree Deadwing CD (2005)
Thirteenth Step
$9.85
Considering their cinematic scope, it's fitting that the songs on DEADWING were actually inspired by a film script written by Porcupine Tree mastermind Steven Wilson. Not that this should come as any surprise to longtime fans who know the UK act's reputation for churning out epic progressive rock so sonically descriptive that it's practically visual.
Porcupine Tree creates works with complex structures that do not alienate or obscure the songs themselves, pieces that are dark and psychedelic without being sinister. On the 12-minute opening title track, weighty guitar riffs and spacious synths immediately recall Nine Inch Nails, but swooping melodic changes give way to ambient passages, making it plain that this is no industrial-rock rip-off. "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here" begins with processed ...
| | Tool 10,000 Days CD (2006)
Thirteenth Step
$13.29
To its legion of fans, everything the band Tool does is an event, but the elaborate plan behind their sporadic release schedule--roughly five years, on average, between albums--is due primarily to the time and effort the band packs into each successive effort. To title their fourth album 10,000 DAYS, then, ...
| | Michalis Terzis Athens Blue: Best Songs CD (1999) (Import) United Kingdom
Thirteenth Step
$24.95
| | Occasionals Live At The Music Hall, Aberdeen CD (2000) (Import) United Kingdom
Thirteenth Step
$30.19
| | Iced Earth Night Of The Stormrider CD (2008)
Thirteenth Step
$13.49 
| | Rapture Out Of The Races And Onto The Tracks CD (2001) Extended Play
Thirteenth Step
$8.95
| | Mother Superior Moanin CD (2005) (Import)
Thirteenth Step
$31.55
| | Michael Schenker MSG CD (1981) (Import) Japan; Mini LP Sleeve
Thirteenth Step
$40.45
| | First Degree The D E Fahrenheit Instrumania! Level C CD (2007)
Thirteenth Step
$13.39
| | Takeovers Bad Football CD (2007)
Thirteenth Step
$11.85
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