A Perfect Circle

eMOTIVe

Could this be a typical case of people missing the point?

Review Score:

(8/10)
A usual phenomenon when one reads Amazon reviews is to see mundane and totally unoriginal mainstream albums being praised to the heavens by die-hard fans. Every once in a while though you'll see an actually very original album not getting the recognition it is due by the reviewers as well.

I'm calling this album original despite it being a covers album. No contradiction involved here. As a rule covers albums are horrible. Exceptions have existed, yes. But they've been so few only serious music wizards can name more than 2-3 albums that escaped the banality of most covers albums out there.

Now, "Emotive" is one of those exceptions and a particularly shining one at that. I'm not a fan of A Perfect Circle's to begin with. I consider their first 2 albums to be something like "Tool for the unitiated". Not bad albums as such but far from my cup of tea. What i find very appealing about "Emotive" is that the covers are bursting with new personality and with new ideas in them. On top of that almost all of them are psyhedelically delivered, so much so, that some are unrecognisable. This is not automatically a bad thing you know. There's actually more merit in covering a song in a totally unexpected way than doing it the usual carbon-copy manner and boring everyone to tears.

The choices that especially attest to that are the covers of "Imagine" and "What's going on". Not that the rest falls far behind, but those 2 do stand out. Speaking of choices i found the whole set to be exceptional. Some reviewers baffled me as they accuse APC of suddenly going political, as if this is some huge crime they're committing or as if anybody promised them it wouldnt and shoulnt happen.

These are very dark times we're living in. The songs APC chose to cover very much reflect that. I tend to think that we are actually more in need of artists expressing themselves politically. Even if that means we'll have to endure a lot of nonsense in the process.

Musically speaking, i consider this LP to be way more attractive than what APC have previously done. And to me this gave a much needed credibility boost to the music of this band.

One of the more pleasant surprises from the rock scene this year, "Emotive" is fresh, it's emphatic, creative, and it speaks out. Man, usually most people out there are satisfied with a lot, lot less...

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