Silicon Obsession: The Long-Awaited Album by A Perfect Circle

A Perfect Circle

Say what you will, but Maynard James Keenan is one of the most interesting men in the music industry - one of the most influential if not controversial.  Indeed, his brand of art is so prodigious and log-awaited that his fans wait breathlessly for the sporadic albums to come out.  In 2015, we saw a new album by Puscifer, one of the best albums of the year, and next year will boast of  a new Tool album, the first in 13 years.  Fans are going crazy with anticipation.  And this year, we were blessed "Eat the Elephant", the spectacular new album by Keenan's supergroup, A Perfect Circle after a long 14-year hiatus.

Ever the eccentric artist, I enjoy watching and reading interviews with Keenan where he describes the creative process in making his music.  I have heard many a Tool fan slobber, "Maynard just writes the words!  He doesn't have anything to do with the music!"  This is said to diminish his contributions, but can you imagine "Aenima" without Keenan's misanthropic rantings?  It is true that he gives his fellow Tool members more creative leeway, because those guys are creative juggernauts.  Even with his personal project, Puscifer, Keenan knows how to surround himself with creative influence and channels it like a maestro.  The same can be said of A Perfect Circle.

Although the band started as the project of Billy Howerdel.  With someone as charismatic as Keenan, it is easy to be eclipsed, but there is no denying that this project is Howerdel's baby.  Howerdel worked in the '90s as a guitar tech for several huge bands, including Tool.  He roomed in Los Angeles for a while with Keenan and was able to personally play the demos of his music for Keenan.  The songs were originally written for a female singer, but Keenan observed that he could imagine himself singing these songs.  And thus was A Perfect Circle born - a supergroup having included such musicians as Troy Van Leeuwen from Queens of the Stone Age, Paz Lenchantin from Pixies, and Tim Alexander from Primus and Arizona band Major Lingo, also currently including James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins.

I have been a Tool fan since the early '90s, but I remember the first time I heard A Perfect Circle in 2000.  "Mer de Noms" became kind of the soundtrack for that year.  It had an edge like Tool, but it was more dreamy, more gothic - in other words, my kind of music.  There have been two albums since then, but honestly I didn't listen to those much until preparing for this review, and I was missing out.  They are all great.

Between albums, Keenan secludes himself in his wine business in the Verde Valley of Arizona (not too far from me).  He has aptly said that having something to do with his life other and music gives him fodder for writing music, otherwise life is just being on the road.  When his bands - be it Tool or APC - are finished writing their music, they will send their recordings to Keenan, and he will play the music in his truck, looking for inspiration.  When it comes, he will wrestle with it until a song emerges.

Keenan has said with "Eat the Elephant", he said that Howerdel sent him a collection of noisy, guitar-driven power pop songs.  Keenan sent the recordings back and told Howerdel to strip the songs down to their most basic level - just piano.  And that works; that's how they left the album - most of it circling around Keenan's voice and a piano, giving the whole album more of a primal feel.  There are a few aggressive moments, but most of the album has the opiate haze of the impetus of a fever dream, the music ebbing and flowing, which makes Keenan's lyrics even more disturbing.

There is a very obvious political slant to this album.  It's obvious that Keenan is not a Trump fan.  But let me give you a hint - he's not a fan of the Democrats, either.  Keenan is very careful to keep his political affiliations out of his interviews, but here, Keenan is evidently critical of both.  This album is a dismal portrait of how screwed our society is.

My favorites are the title track, "Eat the Elephant" - whose meaning is perfectly clear.  We are all clearly eating the elephant right now.  The song starts out with a smoky, jazzy piano and a cymbal.  Keenan's voice is almost weeping, and the guitars are fuzzy and pulsating.  "Disillusioned" is one of my favorites - the song, a lament against technology, has movements and changes that take you through the proverbial gamut of emotions.  Subdued.  That is the word that describes this album.  And yet it works.  "The Contrarian" builds up to a pulsing wash of sound - a shoegaze song if I have ever heard one.  "So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish", a bubbly, caustic tribute to Douglas Adams.  "Talk Talk" continues Keenan's obsession, a love/ hate relationship with Christianity and has a poignant message for me as a Mormon - try walking like Jesus, instead of just talking the talk..  My favorite is "Hourglass", a catchy electronic song in the vein of Nine Inch Nails.  Keenan breaks tradition and croons in his best imitation of Howard Devoto.

All in all, this album is genius.  As everything Keenan does.  It makes me hunger for the Tool album, sad to think about how long it will be before another release.  But I maintain my argument - in mainstream music, no one is more important than Maynard James Keenan.

Puscifer Makes the Best Record of 2015

Puscifer

I have always been kind of proud that I share Northern Arizona with Maynard James Keenan, the legendary singer/ songwriter of two of my favorite bands, Tool and A Perfect Circle, as well as the frontman of the electro-psychedelic pop experiment called Puscifer.  Keenan roams my old stomping grounds of the Verde Valley.  He owns two shops in the old ghost town of Jerome (several buildings there renovated by personal friends) - a wine shop selling his own brand - Caduceus Cellars as well as a merchandise store for his band, Puscifer.  He owns a home in the artist community of Sedona and grows grapes in the small town of Cornville, where I wandered as a nineteen year-old, pretending I was a hippie.  Perhaps I feel that it gives my region some cred to have someone like Keenan see the same thing in rural Arizona that I do.  Many a time, I have fantasized about going to his wine shop and having a conversation with him.  But I always fall short.  His is notoriously private and quite eccentric.  After showing my wife some interviews with Keenan on YouTube, her observation is, "He's a nerd.  An artsy nerd, but still a nerd."

He certainly does not stick to any conventions, but that is what I love about his music.  People always tried to classify Tool, and the band always resisted any label.  Hard rock yes, but far more transcendent.  The same was true with the ethereal sounds of A Perfect Circle.

But I do have a confession.  Even though I am a fan, since their inception back in 2007, I had never listened to a single song by Puscifer.  I was very aware of them, having read several articles about them.  I'm not sure why.  I think that I am always afraid that my favorite artists will have their creative spirit eroded away by age and fame.  Perhaps it was the way they marketed the band - Keenan doing electronic dance music with raucous and rowdy themes.  I mean, their first album was called "V Is For Vagina".

To this date, I have never listened to their first two albums.  But after reading about Tool's explosive performance in Tempe, Arizona this past Halloween, and Puscifer's wild show two days later at the same venue, I decided to check them out.

I'm glad I did.  Puscifer's third album, "Money Shot" is the best album I have heard in a long time, Not only is it the best Keenan record to date - right up there with Tool's "Lateralus" and A Perfect Circle's "Mer de Noms", but it is the best record of 2015.  And I will tell you why.

There is nothing bawdy or juvenile about this record.  It is deep and contemplative, having the same esoteric and mystical quality, yet also containing tongue-in-cheek humor that all of Keenan's work has.  He proves that it doesn't matter what genre he is dabbling in.  As a songwriter, the Force is strong with him.  Yes, most of the songs are ambient and electronic, and other people have said that this is darker and moodier than Puscifer's other releases.  But there is still the exquisite musicianship that is trademark to all of Keenan's endeavors.  Keenan also knows that relying on the gifts of other artists is key to making great music.  Not only is his smooth-as-silk voice prevalent, but Carina Round's angelic voice flits through all of the songs.  There are also a round of guest musicians, including Tim Alexander on drums, who formerly performed with, not only Primus, but Major Lingo, another Northern Arizona favorite from Verde Valley.

The album starts out with an electronic pulse on the first track, "Galileo", fraught with interplay between guitar and vocal harmonies with Keenan and Round.  "Agostina" is a beautiful ode to Keenan's newborn daughter.  "Grand Canyon" is an epic song, kind of reminds me of the track at the end of "We Were Soldiers".  I'm sure you know the one.  I'm not sure if Keenan is singing about standing at the precipice of Arizona's best known National Park or at the edge of the human psyche.  Either way, it is a grandiose tune capped off by Round's voice soaring like an eagle over Angel Point.  "Simultaneous" is an enigma.  It starts out with a man narrating a story about meeting an eccentric bum at a punk festival.  I have tried to find a backstory on this.  I haven't been able to find one.  But the song ends with Keenan philosophizing, "Find a way.  Through, around or over."  All while a guitar buzz-saws in the background.

The title track, "Money Shot", is the only song I don't like on the record.  It is loud and obnoxious, like a turd in the midst of resplendent jewels.  It's as if the record company wanted Keenan to put the obligatory hard rock song in there, but it doesn't fit the quiet contemplation of the rest of the record.  It's out of place, being vaguely reminiscent of Butthole Surfers.  But maybe that's what he was aiming for.  The album resumes with perhaps my favorite track, "The Arsonist", which starts out with electronic chimes and softly builds up to a strong climax.  "The Remedy" is a great single from this which captures Keenan's sardonic side, as he sings, "Yes, we're being condescending.  Yes, that means we're talking down to you."

"Smoke and Mirrors" reflects the moody atmosphere of this record with a kind of Pink Floyd vibe.  Another favorite track of mine is "Life of Brian (Apparently You Haven't Seen)".  The vocal arrangements at the end of this piece are extraordinarily beautiful, almost medieval, and the album finishes off with the somber "Autumn", one of the saddest songs I have ever heard.

I can't rave enough about this record.  I have been listening to it for two months and am not tired of it.  Every single song is good, and I recommend it to anyone searching for good and new music.  Moreover, I have bragging rights.  2015's best record came out of Northern Arizona - recorded and released!  What?!