New album comes full 'circle'

Still riding the success of its sophomore album Thirteenth Step, A Perfect Circle surprised many of its fans by announcing that its brand new album would be released Election Day. The surprise is actually due to the way singer Maynard James Keenan handles his singing duties, normally bouncing back and forth between A Perfect Circle and his much heavier band Tool when it comes to recording new albums. With its new album titled eMOTIVe, A Perfect Circle actually offers up only two new tracks while the other 10 are all political cover songs.\neMOTIVe, for being a cover album, is actually very unique in terms of sound, just like the back-catalogs from Keenan's A Perfect Circle and Tool. Each song sounds entirely different from the other and rarely reaches a heavy moment with exceptions to its cover of Black Flag's "Gimme Gimme Gimme" and the industrialized new track "Counting Bodies like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums." The rest of the album is completely soft and relaxing, ranging from smooth jazz to trip-hop to dark synthesizers. \nThe album eerily opens with a cover of Crucifix's "Annihilation," done entirely with a music-box, undistorted guitars and whispered vocals. As soon as the whispers fade-out, you experience brooding piano followed by cello and drums signaling the first single off the album, a cover of John Lennon's popular tune "Imagine." Other covers come from artists such as Nick Lowe/Elvis Costello ("What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding"), DEVO ("Freedom of Choice") and Memphis Minnie ("When the Levee Breaks"), a song popularized by the legendary Led Zeppelin. \nThe stand-out track for this album is by far the cover of the Marvin Gaye classic "What's Going On." Done entirely with synthesizers and trip-hop beats, Keenan's vocals are echoed via vocal effects, and the end result is an amazingly chilled-out track which washes over your senses. Other highlights include the new original song entitled "Passive" and the entirely a capella cover of Joni Mitchell's "Fiddle and the Drum" which closes out the disc. \nWhile a lot of people consider a cover album to be a sign of a group running out of ideas, with A Perfect Circle's eMOTIVe this certainly isn't the case. It's generating new ideas and reworking them into new versions of well-known classics and underground punk anthems. eMOTIVe is definitely a must-have for any fan of A Perfect Circle and just about anyone looking for a great album that provides a calming relaxation in an audio format.