Well, at least Freese looks happy.
[Video][Website]
[4.67]
Tim de Reuse: I don’t mind that the whole “perverted Sermon on the Mount” schtick is painfully on the nose — I mean, the presentation is as furiously sincere as it’s ever been, so it’s all good fun in that sense — but the particular points made are disappointingly nonspecific. The observation that American religious conservatism amounts to worship of a loveless, violent fuck-you-got-mine individualism wallpapered with Christian imagery ceased to be novel a long time ago, so how could a fairly straightforward re-statement of that concept be cathartic in the modern era? The last few years have offered myriad things to be angry about in new and interesting ways, but I hear this and my only real thought is an exhausted, “Yeah, yeah.”
[6]
Ian Mathers: Look, we all have our idiosyncratic ideas of where the line falls between acceptable/understandable venting about the shitpit we’re all in and being so fucking defeatist about it that you’re actually part of the problem, and this is just on the wrong side of my personal line. Doesn’t help I could feel my eyes rolling as soon as he starts in with “Behold a new Christ”, nor that the damn thing barely bothers to rock.
[2]
Alfred Soto: Behold the new Christ, a new Beatitude, etc — if they want their first album since the Dubya era to sell they better be bold about it. Fans may appreciate the chord changes and frantic arrangement (strings?) more than I do; to me, the track sounds cluttered.
[5]
Alex Clifton: Sonically, “The Doomed” is cluttered; it’s less than five minutes long, but the various structural changes make this feel much longer. Oddly enough, it fits together much better than it should, sustaining a level of drama that’s usually only heard in movie soundtracks. It’s melodic and angry, a rare successful combination, but Maynard Keenan’s vocals demand your attention the whole way through. As a protest, it oscillates beyond fury and hopelessness at the GOP’s version of Christianity, which sums up living in 2017. It’s certainly the best mainstream rock I’ve heard in quite some time. In a crowd of bands like 30 Seconds to Mars or Imagine Dragons, A Perfect Circle hit the target with aplomb.
[7]
Nortey Dowuona: The thick yet sparse bass, the thunderous, echoing drums, the glittering chimes and heavy, swaying piano sliding into the shuddering and cooing guitar – oh, is that A GUITAR SOLO! Billy Howerdell howls his sadness to the moon, marooned among the rushing current of the song, a howl that feels less angry and urgent and also less penitent and sad than it should feel.
[6]
Micha Cavaseno: First off, Josh Freese is a mercenary rock drummer machine, and I could listen to him all day. But ultimately, growing up means you learn how weak things are in contrast to their influences… And Billy Howerdel is as a songwriter, nowhere near as good as Walter Schreifels, the same way Maynard’s other most recognized songwriting partner, Adam Jones, will never be Walter Schreifels. No matter how hard they try, they will always end up coming up sounding sanctimonious in a way that’s too loaded in ‘damn the world’ fist-pumping vitriol and just diluted Quicksand riffs. The thing is, Tool is, for all their gloom and misanthropy, a band with an innate chemistry. APC will never not feel like a side-project of morbid arrangements and gloomy damnation.
[2]