Thirteenth Step

A Perfect Circle

Virgin Records

If the…

Thirteenth Step

A Perfect Circle

Virgin Records

If the sophomore album is all about getting out from under the debut’s shadow, then A Perfect Circle certainly had their work cut out for them. Their Mer De Noms album, one of the best mainstream rock albums of 2000, along with Radiohead’s Kid A and Deftones’ White Pony, was a jolting reminder to jaded grunge-era refugees that Fred Durst need not be the face of the future. How thankful we were for small miracles.

The lineup has changed since their first outing. Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan and project mastermind Billy Howerdel remain on vocals and guitar respectively. But with new bassist Jeordie White – formerly known as Twiggy Ramirez of Marilyn Manson – and guitarist James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins fame, A Perfect Circle now looks more like one those “super groups” that seem to be springing up more rapidly than Panera Bread restaurants.

What A Perfect Circle gives us this time around is a concept album anchored more by evocative themes and hypnotic melodies than by brazen lyrical venom and grinding metal. It’s a convoluted story about attempting to recover from a state of emotional parasitism, complete with the ambivalence, rage, longing and utter loneliness that characterize a punctuated emotional and intellectual transition. It would make for impeccable breakup music, but it’s so emotionally raw and pure that it would be slanderous to pigeonhole it as an album about just that.

Lyrically, Thirteenth Step is bipolar, oscillating between an almost uncomfortable level of sincerity and a pitch of irony so smart and taunting that it’s difficult to distinguish the album’s most earnest moments from its most perverse. The confusion only adds to the album’s emotional potency.

The thematic trajectory is produced not only by the brilliant lyrics but by the sonic approach, as well. Sometimes stripped down and simple, sometimes textured with infinite complexity and other times synthetic and tinny, the sound-scape is as dynamic and varied as the dichotomous lyrical voices. Standout tracks “The Package,” “The Noose” and “Pet” manage to be all of the above.

While fans would’ve loved something as gripping, kinetic and hypnotic as Mer De Noms all over again, it’s for the best that A Perfect Circle took things in a different direction, as more of the same is a sure recipe for disappointment. Instead, Thirteenth Step is a refreshing album that, while very different, is every bit as intense and twisted as you’d expect from them.