A Perfect Circle - 3 LibrasAlbum: Mer de Noms [2000]
a perfect circle is one of those bands that nobody realized was needed until it happened. a grand claim, perhaps, but there's little question that the addicting combination of maynard james keenan's aching voice and billy howerdel's accomplished songs and production skills made for one of 2000's best splashes in whatever was left of "modern rock". howerdel's earlier work with billy corgan makes perfect sense as a result, since the pumpkins regularly fused extreme theatricality of metal and goth just so, but the work here is no clone. his guitar work operates on setting the mood rather than driving everything before it, balancing sheer power with a textured approach that's quite beautiful. nine inch nails-inspired touches crop up in the distorted percussion of many songs. keenan's abilities in delivering on-the-edge emotional collapse had long been clear thanks to tool, and here, with a slightly different musical bed to carry things, he often holds back from the explosiveness, but it's still clearly him. compared to any tool song, the lyrical content on many of these songs are much more straight-forward ("3 libras" speaks of simply being ignored or passed over by a female subject) which is also a welcoming surprise.
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