*** A Perfect Circle

MER DE NOMS

(Virgin)

Tool's Maynard James Keenan is almost solely responsible for the continuity of that most fevered of hard-rock pipe dreams: a version of heavy metal that's both commercially blockbusterish and (cough) cerebral. There is mystery in the man's metal, and in his mettle.

On the debut of his concurrent don't-call-it-a-side-project, Keenan indulges more art and slightly less rock (though there's plenty that'd segue just fine into "Stinkfist" or "Prison Sex"), with an eye to elucidating the shadowy elegance lurking behind even the most toxic of Tool's astral projections. On Tool's Aenima, Keenan played the dark, twisted ingenue; here he's given more to outbursts of formal grace and classic-lit namedropping. Former Tool guitar tech Billy Howerdel's understated sci-fi-noir knob twiddling serves its purpose -- an announcement of progressiveness -- though the occasional drum 'n' bass loop is strictly yesterday's snooze. In any case, Mer de Noms succeeds as a confusion less of genre than of gender -- for all his dark matter, Keenan's always been the metal dude most likely to forsake Ozzfest for Lilith Fair. There's something keenly feminine about the way he probes the slippery moist and tender spot between seduction and violation, and when on "Thinking of You" he gets all drippy over the line "sweet revelations/sweet surrendering," there's more than a casual resemblance to Sarah McLachlan's "Sweet Surrender."

-- Carly Carioli