Imogen Sharma

By Imogen Sharma 23/05/2025

A Perfect Circle is one of the most beguiling and talented rock bands of all time, but here in the UK, not enough people know about them. Today is their debut album, Mer De Nom’s, 25th Anniversary, and it’s time to scream-sing this haunting masterpiece’s praises from the rooftops.

What Makes Mer De Noms a Standout Album?

Two things that make Mer De Noms so uniquely memorable are the elegance of the music and the depth/sensitivity of the lyrics. The melodies are lilting and complex, while the vocals are wrought with raw, messy, beautiful emotion. As Keenan said himself in The New York Times, “Tool is more a left-brain masculine result, and this is more a right-brain feminine result.” 

There’s something profoundly impressive about a person who was born to one gender being able to accurately and delicately embody the other. Even in classic literature, it’s seldom seen. George Eliot and Jonathan Franzen come to mind. In pop music, The Beatles, David Bowie, Bjork, Frank Ocean, and Madonna (to name a few) stand out as convention-blurrers.

When it comes to balancing masculine and feminine in rock, Mer De Noms is in a league of its own. 

A lot of guitar-led music is cock-driven. From the snarling swagger of The Who to the grinding rebellion of Rage Against the Machine and the screeching raucous of AC/DC, rock is dominated by the masculine. Bands such as Pink Floyd and Nirvana give us something deeper and darker, but don’t intentionally play with polarity like APC seem to. 

A Perfect Circle’s Mer De Noms is like that optical illusion where you can simultaneously see a vase and two faces looking at each other. Perfectly embodying the masculine and feminine at once. 

A Perfect Circle – Mer De Noms Meaning and Analysis

“Mer de noms” means “sea of names.” If you look closely, you’ll see that many of these painfully personal songs have names as track titles: Judith, Breña, Rose, Thomas, Magdalena, Orestes, and Renholdër. MJK lays his soul bare, wrangling with past loves, his childhood, abuse, lust, and the religion he grew up with.

Let’s get into detail about what makes the standout tracks on Mer De Noms some of the best ever written.

The Hollow

APC rev the ignition on Mer De Noms with a 5-syllable drum beat that spikes dopamine a little more with every listen. Distorted guitar that wouldn’t be out of place in a NIN record steps up, and then the lyrics:

“Run desire, run, sexual being

Run him like a blade to and through the heart

No conscience, one motive

To cater to the hollow

Screaming feed me here

Fill me up again

And temporarily pacify this hungering

So grow, libido, throw

Dominoes of indiscretions down

Falling all around, in cycles, in circles

Constantly consuming

Conquer and devour

‘Cause it’s time to bring the fire down

Bridle all this indiscretion

Long enough to edify

And permanently fill this hollow

Screaming feed me here

Fill me up again

Temporarily pacifying

Feed me here

Fill me up again

Temporarily pacifying”

Maynard speaks to the most primal of all desires—a disordered brand of sensuality that hints at chronic lack, and a mortally wounded inner child. A bottomless and destructive craving, a hole that can never be filled. 

Neither masculine nor feminine thematically, it’s the honesty and openness that make it feel more Yang. Almost like Maynard is letting us all in on a few secrets about how men’s minds really work. 

The middle verse makes the biggest impact. The imagery is palpably about a person caged by a lack of control over their desires. No care for who they hurt in pursuit of pleasure, doomed to perpetuate an endless cycle of shame and longing. A perfect opening track. 

Magdalena

Howerdel’s technical mastery shines in Magdalena. His guitar sound is discordant and reverberating, somewhat reminiscent of Cobain’s but a sound of its own entirely. 

There’s a thread running through every track of Mer De Noms, making it feel perfectly cohesive—and another reason it’s one of the best of all time. What is that thread? To me, it feels like longing. Audible, aching longing. 

Creeping, breathy vocals creep in:

“Overcome by your

Moving temple

Overcome by this

Holiest of altars

So pure

So rare

To witness such an earthly goddess

That I’ve lost my self-control

Beyond compelled to throw this dollar

Down before your

Holiest of altars

I’d sell

My soul

My self-esteem

A dollar at a time

One chance

One kiss

One taste of you

My Magdalena

I bear witness

To this place, this prayer

So long forgotten

So pure

So rare

To witness such an earthly goddess

That I’d sell

My soul

My self-esteem a dollar at a time

For one chance

One kiss

One taste of you

My black Madonna

I’d sell

My soul

My self-esteem

A dollar at a time

One taste

One taste

One taste of you

My Magdalena”

As with most music, listening to this album as a teenager has the biggest impact. It’s a diagram of debauchery. Not condemning or exalting hedonism, just showing us what it looks like. 

Using the metaphor of Mary Magdalene to exalt a stripper to godlike status, Maynard paints a scene of a man standing at an altar, worshipping beauty so pure and rare it renders him powerless. But, to be clear, this song isn’t really about sex work or a perfect woman, it’s about the overpowering intensity of fantasy. 

Judith 

From strippers to Mum, Maynard doesn’t hold back on the Freudian themes. Although these songs aren’t back to back on the album, the fact they exist in close proximity is testament to his knowledge of the human mind. Not shying away from how his past has shaped him and exploration of the Madonna/Whore complex is perhaps another reason this album feels feminine. 

Despite those themes, Judith feels is the most traditional rock song on the album (also the most popular with 71 million YT views). Distinctly more ‘Tool’ than the others, heavy guitar riffs and pounding drums drive it forward, and Maynard screams half the vocals. 

The track kicks off with a line that will resonate with every rebellious spirit:

“You’re such an inspiration for the ways

That I will never, ever choose to be

Oh, so many ways for me to show you

How your savior has abandoned you

Fuck your God

Your Lord, your Christ, He did this

Took all you had and left you this way

Still you pray, you never stray, you never

Never taste of the fruit

Never thought to question why

It’s not like you killed someone

It’s not like you drove a hateful spear into his side

Praise the one who left you broken down and paralyzed

He did it all for you

He did it all for you

Oh, so many ways for me to show you

How your dogma has abandoned you

Pray to your Christ, to your God

Never taste of the fruit

Never stray, never break never

Choke on a lie!

Even though He’s the one who did this to you

Never thought to question why

Not like you killed someone

It’s not like you drove a spiteful spear into his side

Talk to Jesus Christ as if He knows the reasons why

He did it all for you, oh

He did it all for you, whoa

He did it all for you”

It’s a pretty heavy critique of religion, in direct contrast to the exaltation of the stripper in Magdalena. Interweaving religious and psychological imagery like this isn’t something you see every day. Not even every decade. It’s so personal, raw, real, and unlike the bleeting platitudes spilling from social media we see on our screens every day.

Orestes

Orestes is like a soothing balm after the heat of Judith, with an opening riff that reassures you—this album is truly unlike anything you’ve heard before. The drums subtly work magic, never feeling overbearing as they create tension and space. It’s almost a pure love song:

“Metaphor for a missing moment

Pull me into your perfect circle

One womb, one shame, one resolve

Liberate this will to release us all

Gotta cut away, clear away

Snip away and sever this umbilical residue

Keeping me from killing you

And from pulling you down with me in here

I can almost hear you scream

One more medicated, peaceful moment

Give me one more medicated, peaceful moment

And I don’t wanna feel this overwhelming hostility

I don’t wanna feel this overwhelming hostility

Gotta cut away, clear away

Snip away and sever this umbilical residue

Gotta cut away, clear away

Snip away and sever this umbilical residue

Keeping me from killing you

Snip away and sever this

Keeping me from killing you”

Yeah, it’s a pure love song if you accept a certain amount of Freudian lamenting is par for the course in relationships. “And I don’t wanna feel this overwhelming hostility.” He is trying to love her, but the thing keeping him from killing his beloved is also the pull drawing him in. 

Once more, echoes of the past are preventing the subject from moving on in his life and being the person he wants to be. Ever met someone who’s afraid of commitment? Someone with an avoidant attachment style? You can probably learn a lot about their inner workings from this album.  

3 Libras

Unrivalled in terms of a man expressing his anima, and mythological in its resonance, 3 Libras rests in a class of its own. 

The guitar riff sits somewhere between Joni Mitchell and Soundgarden, while lush strings lilt and lift the track. It has an almost floral, fairy-tale feel to it, moving along gently, like a painting being created before your eyes. 

The vocal performance and lyrics are astounding:

“Threw you the obvious

And you flew with it on your back

A name in your recollection

Down among a million same

Difficult not to feel a little bit

Disappointed and passed over

When I look right through

To see you naked but oblivious

And you don’t see me

But I threw you the obvious

Just to see if there’s more behind

The eyes of a fallen angel

Eyes of a tragedy

Here I am expecting

Just a little bit too much from the wounded

but I see, see through it all

See through, see you

‘Cause I threw you the obvious

to see what occurs behind

the Eyes of a fallen angel

Eyes of a tragedy

Oh well, oh well

Apparently nothing

Apparently nothing at all

You don’t, you don’t, you don’t see me

You don’t, you don’t, you don’t see me

You don’t, you don’t, you don’t see me

You don’t, you don’t, you don’t see me

You don’t see me

You don’t, you don’t

You don’t see me at all”

Poetry. The experience of unrequited love is universal, and 3 Libras captures it with a dark kind of grace. His conclusion that there’s nothing at all behind the eyes of a fallen angel could reflect that he was rejected. A bruised, overinflated ego that can only see her through the eyes of his longing. Without reciprocation for his feelings, she’s nothing. 

Sleeping Beauty 

Sleeping Beauty follows in step from 3 Libras:

“Delusional

I believe I can cure it all for you, dear

Coax or trick or drive or

Drag the demons from you

Make it right for you sleeping beauty

Truly thought

I can magically heal you

You’re far beyond a visible sign of your awakening

Failing miserably to rescue

Sleeping beauty

Drunk on ego

Truly thought I could make it right

If I kissed you one more time to

Help you face the nightmare

But you’re far too poisoned for me

Such a fool to think that I can wake you from your slumber

That I could actually heal you

Sleeping beauty

Poisoned and hopeless

You’re far beyond a visible sign of your awakening

Failing miserably to find a way to comfort you

Far beyond a visible sign of your awakening

Hiding from some poisoned memory

Poisoned and hopeless

Sleeping beauty”

The self-awareness of these lyrics are striking. Savior complex and ego drove him to believe all the object of his desire is missing is his love. Instead of seeing her as a person with countless experiences that have rendered her ‘poisoned,’ he sees her only as an extension of his ego. If only someone had loved her the way he is capable of loving her, she would be fine. 

Anyone who has been in a relationship with someone deeply traumatised or mentally ill can see themselves here. Despite how terrible it all sounds, it’s a natural, human response to a loved one’s incomprehensible pain. 

Breña

Finally, here it is. Perhaps the most tender love song ever made by a rock band. In stark contrast to the rest of the album, it’s full of hope and healing. During the verses, the music is paired back, and evocative of a sprawling alpine landscape with ice-topped mountains and crystal lakes. 

Before the chorus kicks in, textured, distorted guitars crash in like someone taking a running jump and cathartically throwing themselves into the crystal lake. And the lyrics, oh the lyrics:

“My reflection wraps and pulls me under

Healing waters to be bathed in Breña

Guide me safely in worlds I’ve never been

To heal me, heal me, my dear Breña

Vulnerable

It’s all right

Heal me, heal me, my dear Breña

Show me lonely and show me openings

To bring me closer to you, my dear Breña

Vulnerable

It’s all right

Opening to heal…

Opening to heal…

Heal…”

A perfect album.