Mer De
Noms by
A Perfect Circle entered the Billboard charts at number four. It's the
highest first-week position ever for a debut rock album. Credit singer
Maynard James Keenan for that, whose talents were originally witnessed as lead
singer in the band Tool. He’s one of the greatest singers of all time,
and hardly anybody knows who he is. Tool is rarely played on mainstream
radio stations, even rock ones. A Perfect Circle is much more accessible
than Tool, due to the more formulaic and compressed structure of their
songs. Maynard also seems to be exploring his feminine side in these
songs, as they are relatively mellow and touched with light compared with
Tool’s dark, heavy machismo.
The
album’s title means “Sea of Names” in Latin, an appropriate one considering all
the names used in its song titles. Magdalena, Judith, and
Orestes are but a few of them, reflecting a religious mythos in the
lyrics. But typical of Maynard is the deeply personal nature of his
songs. Like some of the songs he wrote for Tool, the ones he is writing
for APC can be interpreted mythologically or psychologically. Even sexual
or violent interpretations exist, as his less mature fans might claim.
This
album quickly became one of the best to ever grace my ears. The spacious,
atmospheric, hymnal concentration of Maynard’s passion reflects an archetypal
message in the music he’s fronting. “Give me one more medicated
peaceful moment”, he says in Orestes. “Show
me the way to forgive you, allow me to let it go”, he croons in Thomas.
He is trying to let go of all the hurt in his past and all the anger he’s been
screaming into that microphone. A Perfect Circle is the nurturing,
enlightened, benevolent Maynard, the Maynard he is trying to become.
