Maynard James Keenan, the voice of Puscifer, Tool and A Perfect Circle, has a way of turning me off to his music at first, only to become an obsession in the end. A Perfect Circle's album "eMOTIVe" was no different, yet now I find myself advertising this album as the most important political album in the past six-years. It was late in coming, as its release neared the close of 2004, though it applies even more on this very day than ever before. If the current political trends continue, or even worsen, it will only become more and more important.
The majority of the album are covers of protest songs from past artists, such as "Imagine" by John Lennon and "When the Levee Breaks" by Led Zeppelin. There is also a studio version of the Tapeworm Project song "Passive," which was only previously available in its live format as the song "Vacant." Every track on this compilation stands out as unique, yet similarly imperitive. The compilation opens with "Annihilation," which is a lullabyesque song spelling out the philosophy put forward by Lennon that "you can stand for peace, but not fight for it."
The masterful working of music behind APC's remake of "When the Levee Breaks" takes the band to a new level, and "Imagine" takes a previously haunting song out of its tomb and back into flight, where it hovers as a shadow over all of those calling for war. If the CD contained only these two tracks, it would already stand out ahead of all of the many other protest albums that have been coming out in greater and greater numbers.
burning_eyes http://www.aperfectcircle.com/ San Jaya Prime · Sun Aug 13, 2006 @ 06:27am · 0 Comments