• Reissue
  
  

A Perfect Circle's eMOTIVe arrived in 2004 as the band's third studio album, arriving during a period when Maynard James Keenan's primary focus remained with Tool. The record marked a deliberate shift toward covering songs that resonated with the band's artistic sensibilities—a curated selection of compositions spanning decades and genres, rearranged through the lens of their distinctive prog-rock approach. Within A Perfect Circle's catalog, eMOTIVe stands apart as their most collaborative and interpretive work, showcasing Billy Howerdel's production acumen and the band's ability to inhabit material beyond their own compositions.

The album opens with a muscular take on John Lennon's "Imagine," immediately signaling the group's willingness to deconstruct sacred cows. "Annihilation" and "Passive" showcase the band's gift for atmospheric tension and dynamic restraint, building from near-silence to walls of distortion. Standouts like "What's Going On" and "Peace Love And Understanding" demonstrate how effectively A Perfect Circle can inhabit protest songs and social commentary, their deliberate arrangements lending urgency to messages about violence and displacement. The record's atmosphere balances moments of gorgeous, dissonant beauty with unsettling textures—Howerdel's guitars rarely settle into comfortable tonality, while Keenan's vocal delivery ranges from intimate whisper to commanding presence. eMOTIVe succeeds not as a covers album but as a statement about shared artistic values and the power of restraint-driven reinterpretation.

This vinyl reissue presents eMOTIVe across two 180-gram LPs, restoring the album's dynamic range and low-end detail that benefit from the format's acoustic properties. The package includes original artwork and liner notes, preserving Howerdel's Perfect Circle Studios production credits and the album's 2004 Virgin Records provenance. For collectors, this pressing captures the record's carefully calibrated dynamics—the breathing space between instruments and Keenan's vocals particularly benefits from vinyl's natural compression and harmonic characteristics.

Tracklist:

A1. Annihilation (2:14)
A2. Imagine (4:48)
A3. Peace Love And Understanding (5:03)
B1. What's Going On (4:52)
B2. Passive (4:09)
B3. Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie (2:18)
C1. People Are People (3:42)
C2. Freedom Of Choice (2:59)
C3. Let's Have A War (3:28)
D1. Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm Of The War Drums (5:35)
D2. When The Levee Breaks (5:54)
D3. Fiddle And The Drum (3:06)