A lot of memories that I have from my college days can be tied to certain records, and this is one of them. So, it thrilled me when I saw that Amazon has put A Perfect Circle‘s Thirteenth Step up as one of their $5 MP3 album deals for this month. This is one of my favorite albums of all time. When I’m feeling a little low, or if I want to just chill out for a while, I go to this one.

A Perfect Circle is fronted by the iconic alt-metal vocalist Maynard James Keenan, and while I love his band Tool, in my opinion his work with A Perfect Circle is his best. I enjoyed the band’s first outing Mer Des Noms, but I felt like, with the exception of a couple of songs, it could simply be another Tool album, for the most part. But with the addition of Jeordie White (Marilyn Manson’s Twiggy Ramirez) and former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, A Perfect Circle was able to reach a new level of excellence and grew into their own sound. And that is 100 percent apparent on Thirteenth Step.

The album sounded like nothing else that was out at its time, and still sounds relevant today, while the band’s first attempt sounds dated. But more than anything, this album sounds mature. It’s extremely rare when alt-metal musicians grow up, but this album was able to let us hear the progression. And that’s partially due to the engineering of the album. In fact, when I was in college I worked in live sound, and the album that was used to test the equipment was this one. And that’s because, sonically, this album is flawless. It’s rocks hard in some spots, but in others it gets a lot softer, but more importantly, this album is amazing from the first track to the last. You can’t pass this up.

So, to wrap this up, one of the best sounding albums of all time, and one of the few to give the listener a pleasing showcase of maturing rockers from the 90s at their finest is being offered by Amazon for $5. This album is easily worth $20, and you’ll get years of enjoyment out of it. But unfortunately, this sale ends at 11:59 PST on October 31st, so you don’t have a lot of time. What are you waiting for!? Go buy it now!

Track Listing

1. The Package
2. Weak and Powerless
3. The Noose
4. Blue
5. Vanishing
6. A Stranger
7. The Outsider
8. Crimes
9. The Nurse Who Loved Me
10. Pet
11. Lullaby
12. Gravity