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