IN REVIEW: A Perfect Circle - "Eat the Elephant"

As the world awaits that long, long gestating fifth Tool album, Maynard James Keenan has been waiting too, and filling the time with a myriad of occupations; as a prominent wine maker and mastermind behind Puscifer amongst other interests, Keenan's had plenty to keep him busy when not working on that damned Tool record. Now, even as we've been promised that the wait for that is nearly over, perhaps the most welcome distraction comes in the form of new material from A Perfect Circle, one of Keenan's first so-called side projects. Sometimes lost in the shuffle is the fact that APC have also garnered a pretty devoted fan base and have been away for far too long; Eat the Elephant is their first album of original material in fifteen years and, not counting a couple of one off songs along the way, the first time we heard from them in any real capacity since 2004.

Over the course of so much time there is bound to be change, and it comes in the overall tone of Eat the Elephant; this is not the dark and visceral material of Mer de Noms and Thirteenth Step, but rather a more measured and nuanced take on the sound they built over the course of that initial five year run. Chief songwriter Billy Howerdel's slashing guitars are supplemented with more cinematic flourishes and slower tempos that relay a more thoughtful, morose approach. To wit, the album opens with four plodding, hypnotic ballads of varying degrees of intensity (so as to say, from very little to quite a bit less than you may be used to); the most fiery of these is first single The Doomed, and even that only really picks up steam in its final seconds.

There are songs that strike closer to the band's previously established aesthetic; TalkTalk carries a slower tempo than Judith, but shares some of the same spirit. The following track, By and Down the River, is a more fleshed out reinterpretation of the new song included on their 2013 hits compilation; elsewhere, there are moments that briefly call to mind past APC glories even if they're contained to a chorus here and a riff there.

For the most part, Eat the Elephant sees A Perfect Circle settling into a kind of middle age, resulting in a less intense and more casual set of songs that sometimes, as on current single So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish and Delicious, border on radio-friendly pop/rock. Elsewhere, there are a few attempts at contemporary concession that don't fully pan out; the jarring industrial touches and vocal effects on Hourglass aren't completely out of character, but they do feel somewhat like a cheapening of their sound. The sonic detours taken on closing track Get the Lead Out are interesting, but the expansive ballad feels like it could have been much more effective on an album that wasn't already overflowing with expansive ballads.

Overall, Eat the Elephant remains an admirable accomplishment by a group of talented artists, and it offers plenty for listeners to chew on; the problems arise when, over the course of such a large meal, everything starts to taste the same.

April 20, 2018 • BMG
Highlights The Contrarian • The Doomed • So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Year in Rock 2025

Alright, I've got some explaining to do. By now anyone who's visited this blog is well aware of how infrequently I've used this space in recent years; aside from the occasional fertile year of content, I really haven't posted all that often over the last five years or so. There are many reasons for this, which have already been outlined in previous apology posts; but, essentially, it boils down to my own laziness and the cold reality that blogs are, like Refused (again), fucking dead. So, I wouldn't hold my breath for a triumphant return to reviews, or even semi-regular posts, but: a) I feel like Year in Rock posts have always belonged here and, even though I've experimented with different methods of presentation recently and been satisfied, the "blink and you missed it" unveiling via Facebook stories this year was perhaps ultimately a disservice to the records I lauded. After all, cramming the list into short videos isn't too far off from ju...

Year in Rock 2011 Nominee: Sam Roberts Band

SAM ROBERTS BAND I Feel You From: Collider Released: May 10 Having already endured the breakout success ( Brother Down was Canada's it rock song of 2002), the tentative dabbling in the U.S. market, as is the rite of passage for all moderately successful Canuck artists (2003's debut We Were Born in a Flame was the best time to try; one of the best albums of the year, it made a small dent in the American mindset upon its release there a year later), the difficult, druggy third album (the aptly named 2005 disc Chemical City ), and the subdued creative step backward (2008's Love at the End of the World , aside from hit single Them Kids , was really kinda bland), it seems according to script that Sam Roberts would start settling in on his fourth album (and first with the band credited as equal contributors), Collider (you know, I think it was a bad idea to give me brackets). Well, as far as settling in goes, Roberts does and doesn't on Collider . W...

IN REVIEW: Rancid - "Trouble Maker"

As far as punk rock goes, it's hard to name a hotter hot streak than the trio of records Rancid cranked out between 1995 and 2000; the star making ...And Out Come the Wolves , the far-reaching Life Won't Wait and their balls-to-the-wall second self-titled album solidly positioned Rancid as leaders of the second generation of punk. It also preceded a period of slow progression, as Rancid would take eleven years to release their next three records. By the time ...Honor Is All We Know came in 2014, many fans (myself included) had to wonder whether or not this was the end of the road. Such concerns are handily dealt with on the closing track of the standard edition of their ninth record, the positively punishing This Is Not the End . Well, okay then, that's sorted. Now, what of this new record? What do we make of the use of their original logo on the cover, a logo that hasn't graced a Rancid record in 25 years? Is this a throwback to the band's heyday, a new begin...

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