by Anthony Hillman

Created on: February 04, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

When people talk about A Perfect Circle, they usually immediately think of vocalist Maynard James Keenan. This is mainly because he was the most famous member of the band when this - their debut album - was released by Virgin Records in 2000.
This has given birth to the common misconception that Keenan is the brains behind the band, some often citing it as his "side-project". This couldn't be further from the truth.

A Perfect Circle is the brainchild of guitarist, Billy Howerdel. Beginning his career as a guitar technician for bands such as Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails and Tool, Billy spent the majority of his time writing his own music. Following Nine Inch Nails' Robin Finck into the Guns N' Roses camp whilst they began recording their still unreleased Chinese Democracy, Billy's knowledge of computer programs like ProTools impressed Axl enough to promote him to the band's studio engineer. It was at this time that he showed drummer Josh Freese some of the tracks he'd been working on. Josh was so impressed that when Tool frontman and Billy's room mate, Maynard James Keenan suggested they record them, Josh jumped at the chance.

The original line-up consisted of Billy, Maynard, Josh, Nine Inch Nails' Danny Lohner and Argentinian bass player Paz Lenchantin and began playing shows in 1999 amidst a record label scramble to sign this promising new band. With Lohner returning to Nine Inch Nails, Failure guitarist Troy van Leuwen was brought into the fold and recording began.

Released in 2000, Mer de Noms explains exactly why Maynard and Josh were so excited when they heard Billy's potential. The album was recorded primarily by that trio, with Troy only appearing on two tracks, and Paz playing violin on most of the tracks she played on - playing bass on only one, but despite this being one person's project more than a band effort, A Perfect Circle positively soar!

Kicking off with The Hollow - featuring Primus' Tim Alexander on drums - Billy's guitar melodies and programming filling the senses with joy, as Maynard goes about proving once and for all that nobody has a voice like his. In Tool, his singing his harder and more aggressive, but something that becomes evident during the course of this record is that his voice is beautiful. Blending perfectly into the subtle guitar tones and haunting violin motif of the somber 3 Libras - not only a highlight of the album, but amongst this writers favourite songs ever - you will genuinely feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end when the track reaches its crescendo.

After 7 years, Mer de Noms has stood the test of time, sounding just as vital, artistic, exciting and new now as it did back then.
The hard-hitting and scathing attack on blind faith that is Judith reminds us that when they want to this band can rock out like anyone else, but the sheer variety of different emotions Mer de Noms put you through in its 45 minutes - anger, melancholy, downright frisky - proves that this band had a lot of potential. The two albums which followed may not have completely lived up to that potential, but I sincerely hope that eventually they'll give it another try.
In the meantime, Maynard is back in Tool, Josh is currently working with Nine Inch Nails and Billy keeps on promising a solo album. If it's as high quality as this, then there'll be absolutely no complaints here.

9.5/10 - Still my favourite album of the decade so far.

Learn more about this author, Anthony Hillman.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.