It's only a year since APC's last album Thirteenth Step, but frontman Maynard James Keenan wasn't going to let the US election pass without comment, hence this collection of protest songs. The raging, metal-reinforced anger of "Counting Bodies To The Rhythm Of The War Drums" sets the tone. But it's one of only two originals alongside 10 extraordinary covers, most of which are mercifully free of heavy-rock cliché. They include a funereally-paced "Imagine", "What's Going On" delivered in an ethereal whisper, a moodily magnificent take on "When The Levee Breaks" and Joni Mitchell's "Fiddle And The Drum" sung a cappella. Unexpectedly impressive, like a 2004 equivalent of Randy California's similarly motivated masterpiece, Spirit Of '76.

NIGEL WILLIAMSON

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