A Perfect Circle - A Sea of Sounds

The A Perfect Circle project was originally conceived by Billy Howerdel, guitarist and former sound technician for Faith No More, Smashing Pumpkins, David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails among many others. In 1992 Howerdel is working the Fishbone tour when he meets Maynard James Keenan, singer of Tool, who were the opening act. The two strike up a solid friendship that culminates in Howerdel working as a technician on the 1996 tour for the album “Ænima”. During that time, he decides to let Keenan hear some demos he had written earlier. Tool's frontman is deeply struck by them and exclaims: “I can hear myself singing on this”. In truth, Howerdel had originally envisioned a female voice for the songs, but convinced by Maynard's talent, he agrees to team up with him on the project as soon as both find a window of free time. The right moment arrives in 1999, when Tool are temporarily on hold due to a contractual dispute with their label, Volcano Records. Keenan can thus devote himself fully to working with Howerdel.

The two complete the lineup by bringing in Josh Freese on drums, Troy Van Leeuwen of Failure on guitar, Argentine musician Paz Lenchantin on bass and violin, plus a large cast of guests. Keenan mainly handles the vocals and lyric writing. But the true creative “mastermind” is the eclectic Howerdel, who writes all the music, plays guitars, bass and keyboards, records the backing vocals, and also handles mixing and production. Thus in 2000 the first album, Mer De Noms, is finally released. The title, which means “sea of names” in French, refers to a series of people Keenan met throughout his life, who inspired the lyrics, which turn out to be highly intimate and introspective.

It's an alternative rock album where echoes of grunge (a constant for many bands of this era) are evident, but everything is steeped in near-industrial rhythms, dreamlike textures, art-rock elements in its refined style and string arrangements, and progressive touches in the drum work (handled by the solid, versatile Josh Freese, who delights in embellishing everything with tempo changes and rhythmic counterpoints). 

The result flows into a sort of futuristic grunge, where Soundgarden, Failure and Smashing Pumpkins cross paths with King Crimson and Traffic, before letting themselves be partly contaminated by nu-metal, with echoes of Deftones.

In reality, though, Howerdel draws on a rich array of sources, reinterpreting the most disparate influences in a highly personal style. “Thomas” harks back to Black Sabbath, “Thinking Of You” to Nine Inch Nails, the propulsive opener “The Hollow” offers a more refined take on Smashing Pumpkins, while on “Brena” it almost sounds as if Layne Staley is singing; “Renholder”, meanwhile, is a perverse litany that could have come straight off “White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity” by Swans. The gem “3 Libras” is, finally, a little jewel built around acoustic guitar, violins, distorted emotional climaxes and uptempo drums.

Keenan's presence on the mic led the music press of the time to make inevitable comparisons with Tool. However, aside from his splendid vocal performance (in which the singer always tries to use approaches and tones very different from the typical Tool style), the A Perfect Circle sound has very little in common with Tool, and not just because the songs are more tightly structured. The project is, above all, the product of Howerdel and his creative flair, even though Maynard's bigger name sometimes leads people to mistakenly regard the band as a minor side project of his.

Mer De Noms proves to be a classy, solid, sophisticated and catchy album, emerging in a difficult period when grunge had exhausted its innovative drive, electronic music was dominant, the rock charts were overrun by nu-metal, pop-punk or post-grunge trends, and the first signs of a new wave revival and the emo boom were starting to emerge. American alternative rock, in fact, in its more mainstream forms, generally had very little to say during this period, often amounting to a sterile rehash of post-grunge clichés, occasionally tinged with alternative-metal. Bands like Staind, Creed, Hoobastank or Nickelback were busy competing for sales records with the last waves of nu-metal. A Perfect Circle's debut, together with that of a handful of other bands like Chevelle and especially Dredg, stands out in this context as a lesson in style and a breath of fresh air that redefines the coordinates of American alternative rock. The album achieves considerable success with both audiences and critics. It would go on to inspire, with mixed results, bands like 30 Seconds To Mars, Tweaker and 10 Years, who were about to make their own debuts shortly after. 

At this point Tool resume their musical path, having resolved their record label issues, and Maynard focuses on them to release “Lateralus“, without, however, neglecting A Perfect Circle, which he continues to regard as an equal band, complete with its own touring schedule and contractual commitments to honor.

To get a new album under the A Perfect Circle name, fans had to wait until 2003, when Thirteenth Step was born. Production on the album was complicated by two lineup changes that occurred along the way: Troy Van Leeuwen joined Queens Of The Stone Age during the recording sessions and was replaced by James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins; Paz Lenchantin was recruited by Billy Corgan for his band Zwan and so only recorded some string parts, being replaced on bass by Jeordie White (better known as Twiggy Ramirez from Marilyn Manson's band). Josh Freese, however, remained, providing the rhythmic backbone on which Howerdel's compositions rest, once again calling in a host of guests to enrich the new songs, which grow ever more elegant and refined.

The album is even more explicitly a meeting point between alternative rock, progressive rock and post-grunge, playing almost like an exercise in style, meticulous and emotional. This time around, occasional more psychedelic touches influenced by Tool are genuinely perceptible, above all in the mesmeric “The Outsider“. “Lullaby” is a spectral ambient piece featuring Jarboe of Swans. “Pet” is a dark, aggressive industrial/grunge explosion with atmospheres close to Deftones. “The Nurse Who Loved Me”, on the other hand, is a cover of alt-rockers Failure (Van Leeuwen's previous band) that shows a certain baroque mannerism in its strings and moving vocal melodies.

A beautiful close is entrusted to “Gravity”, a dark, gloomy track with a hypnotic litany and yet another perfect exercise in class. These are highly refined, elaborate songs, which give Howerdel an excuse to put his sonic experiments on display and give Keenan ample room to move with his vocal lines.

If, on a purely compositional level, the album is slightly inferior to its predecessor, coming across as a touch less creative and (relatively) a touch more commercial, Thirteenth Step actually sounds overall far more mature, personal, cohesive and emotional; it's Keenan above all who outdoes himself, not only delivering another excellent vocal performance but also writing lyrics that are even smarter and more poetic (the lyrics of “Blue”, “Vanishing”, “Gravity”, “The Noose”, “Pet” are stunning, and the subject matter of “The Outsider” is decidedly out of the ordinary).

The project's third studio album comes with some peculiar traits: eMOTIVe is in fact a work conceived entirely as an act of political protest and a pacifist statement, specifically against the George W. Bush administration, through a selection of covers chosen precisely for their content and rearranged in a much darker, more modern style. Keenan himself wanted the album released during the 2004 election period, to raise American public awareness of the conflict in Iraq. The rather saturated cover art shows a ruined peace symbol in the foreground, with a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles in the background. Aside from the substantial, intense “Passive” (a reworking of “Vacant”, a song originally written for the later-abandoned Tapeworm project by Keenan and Trent Reznor) and the industrial march of “Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rythm Of The War Drums” (a sequel to “Pet” from the previous album), the songs are all reworkings of more or less well-known tracks. The duo reframes them in a much darker, more abrasive light, almost underscoring how the current era is far more raw and desolate than the one in which the originals were written, yet no less capable of conveying equally strong and incisive messages. These aren't simple covers in the commonly understood sense of the term, but full-on rearrangements in an entirely different style, with new sonorities grafted onto the basic melodic framework — at times unrecognizable, if not for the lyrics.

While the opening “Annihilation” by Crucifix plays on the unsettling contrast between its sweet main notes and its surrounding melancholic atmosphere, yet remains unfinished, it's “Imagine”, the historic song by John Lennon, that proves surprising for its anguished, decadent sonorities, which completely overturn the original's attitude, turning it into something far more pessimistic and nihilistic. It's above all the mechanical, almost martial drumming and the obsessive piano that make it particularly dark. The official video is bitterly explicit in its intent.

Also worthwhile is the grafting of a downtempo beat onto strings and repeated acoustic arpeggios in “Peace Love & Understanding” (Nick Lowe), but the album's masterpiece is “What's Going On” by Marvin Gaye, reworked in a dream-pop vein with light drum taps, hazy keyboard washes and a melancholic voice, coming across as deeply evocative and touching. The contrast with “Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie” (Black Flag) is stark at this point: obsessive, searing, with alienating vocalizations over distorted, post-industrial backing. “When the Levee Breaks” (Led Zeppelin) is one of the best tracks of the lot, with jazz/lounge piano, an almost downtempo rhythm and noir atmospheres accompanying a sharp, delicate voice, while faint yet immensely evocative note progressions unfold in the background. The album closes with the layered gospel vocals of “Fiddle And The Drum” (Joni Mitchell), although the underlying idea could have been explored further. Also worth noting is Howerdel's own debut on lead vocals (not backing vocals), specifically on “Peace, Love & Understanding”, “People Are People” and “Freedom of Choice”, where he shows a vocal timbre very close to Maynard's, albeit less powerful. It was Maynard himself who convinced him, intending to encourage Howerdel — who had already begun devoting his spare time to his solo projects for about a year — to develop his own personal musical identity as a singer, free of the looming presence of Tool's established frontman, as well as to get the audience accustomed to his voice.

While the album's political aim failed, given Bush's confirmation at the White House, its musical outcome, despite some ups and downs, would showcase a highly personal style capable of building a whole range of bleak, pulsating atmospheres and emotions.

Later on, aMOTION was also released, a DVD containing various videos and remixes. eMOTIVe would also remain, for a long time, the last A Perfect Circle album, since Keenan would devote himself solely to Tool (and later to the Puscifer project and his own winemaking business). Howerdel took note, and in 2006 the two driving forces of the band announced that the project was on indefinite hiatus.

In 2008 Howerdel finally managed to complete his solo ambitions and released the album Keep Telling Myself It's Alright under the moniker ASHES dIVIDE. Despite the lack of involvement from Keenan, the music press from the outset largely greeted it as a new chapter of A Perfect Circle, given Howerdel's trademark songwriting and the participation of Josh Freese on drums. It also features various guests drawn directly from the recording sessions of the A Perfect Circle albums, and the sound is largely retained, steered toward a more melodic, atmospheric dimension. Paz Lenchantin co-writes “Denial Waits”, one of the most urgent, driving tracks of the bunch, alongside Howerdel. The musician's intention was for the album to be far removed from the A Perfect Circle sound, but during the writing process he often found himself struggling to pursue that goal, since he felt the result coming across as forced and disconnected from his inspiration. So Howerdel opted for a more spontaneous approach, resulting in compositions comparable to those on Mer de Noms and Thirteenth Step, evident above all in the more refined tracks like “The Stone” or the closing “Sword”, while focusing on making the songwriting more direct and impactful. Though constantly steeped in twilight, melancholic moods that echo the atmospheres of the previous albums, the songs don't shy away from biting riffs and enveloping melodies. The softer moments are concentrated in effects-laden, rarefied ballads (except for the decisive drumming) like “Ritual”. While the depth of the earlier works remains out of reach, this is certainly an enjoyable record for A Perfect Circle fans.

The Puscifer moniker, on the other hand, stands as Maynard James Keenan's most personal and "private" musical project, a divertissement that plays with electronic, industrial, trip-hop, pop and ambient contaminations, but without any particular ambitions — in fact, it was born in a totally lighthearted way, without taking itself seriously. But through a few EPs, this path too would partially edge closer to the atmospheres and arrangements of A Perfect Circle.

In 2010 A Perfect Circle announced their official reunion for a series of concerts, and then in 2013 released the compilation Three Sixty along with a new single (“By And Down”, esoteric and alienating but also very melodic, somewhere between psych-rock and ambient-rock).

It was merely a taste of the grand return, repeatedly postponed and long awaited, which officially arrived on April 20, 2018, with the release of Eat The Elephant. It took almost 15 years since the previous album, amid delays, side projectsand various setbacks. The decade-long gestation of the record was troubled to say the least, starting from its beginnings in 2008, with a few song sketches, many discarded ideas, and a Keenan who was unexpectedly fickle in judging the material Howerdel put forward. Both men's personal commitments further contributed to stretching out the writing phase. Howerdel decided to keep some tracks for himself, possibly to release in the future as ASHES dIVIDE, while he offered others to Chester Bennington to launch a collaboration, which however never came to be due to the latter's tragic suicide in July 2017. The odyssey came to an end that same year, when Keenan and Howerdel finally agreed on the direction to take and entered the recording studio, together with an entirely renewed supporting line-up.

The band's goal is not to repeat the same formula from so many years before, now considered past its time. And from the very first singles released, a change is noticeable that would spark plenty of debate: musically, it's a very atmospheric, catchy album, much "softer" than before. The tracks all come across as slowed down, composed by stripping away rock elements, leaning heavily on sentimentality and on sonic counterpoints woven around Maynard's voice, expressive, intimate and often filtered. The compositions are centered on him, and on the soundscapes built through keyboard and piano, which chime delicately to accompany emotional vocal lines.

Guitars are sparse, mainly there to support Maynard rather than engaged in riffs, and blended in with the rest of the instruments and especially with the sound effects. Howerdel proves more than ever a master of the exercise in style, impeccably crafting 12 pristine, meticulous, mannered songs. In some ways, the "riff-centric" elements are set aside in favor of a focus on effects, catchiness and emotion. At certain moments it almost feels like listening to the latest Lunatic Soul and especially Anathema, with their very atmospheric, stretched-out alternative rock. From eMOTIVe, meanwhile, the political engagement returns, but this time in a more allegorical way, played out through implication, shared feeling and wide-ranging references, starting with the title itself (the elephant is the symbol of the American Republican Party, a reference to the hotly contested election of the controversial figure of Donald Trump in 2016). It's an introspective album, one that explores social and political themes with a mature, up-to-date approach.

It's above all an easy-listening rock album through and through, yet lived-in and sensitive, and deeply refined in its melancholy. Across all 57 minutes of its runtime, it never dares venture beyond the well-crafted, radio-friendly, melancholic and heavily produced song. It will surely divide listeners, and to purist fans it will sound slick and calculated. But however mannerist an exercise in style it may be, it turns out to be a genuinely well-written work, enveloping in its atmospheres.

Minor contributions by Mauro Roma and Antonio Ciarletta

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