eMOTIVe

11/04/2004 10:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Ken Micallef

Say you wanna revolution? Or are you happy with "Four more years of Hell," as Teresa Heinz Kerry so succinctly put it. Begin the healing? Heck, A Perfect Circle got it right with this now rather forlorn-sounding album of cover songs, each track transformed to communicate heated political angst in this politically and economically divided nation. Perhaps if eMOTIVe had hit the shelves before its Election Day release it would have made a bigger impact to an apathetic twentysomething voter base. Now it is just a good example of A Perfect Circle's art, its talent in changing songs of hope and possibility into ruminations on the darker side of the American psyche.

Maintaining A Perfect Circle’s typically ominous vision, eMOTIVe is the sound of warring and rage, of a revolution that never was. Led by Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, the band builds on the power of the previous Thirteenth Step, applying hypnotic arrangements, brooding melodies, and droning rhythms to a collection that sounds absurd on its surface, but is woven together by A Perfect Circle's heavy and dark-lidded instrumental approach. John Lennon’s "Imagine" is reworked into a slow-burning call to arms; Nick Lowe’s "Peace Love And Understanding" (popularized by Elvis Costello) is awash in rich 12-string guitars and a ritualistic tribal groove; Marvin Gaye’s "What’s Going On" soars like a lament to something missing in the American mindset, something perhaps found in a more accepting American era when greed wasn’t good. Even Memphis Minnie’s "When The Levee Breaks" is re-conceptualized as an ethereal Celtic soul send-up, a comforting place of peace in the furor laden song cycle. Two original songs match A Perfect Circle’s covers menu, providing more direct political thought.