I love music: It’s an integral part of my life. I love how an amazing song can send shivers down my spine just as it breaks out, how an album can just perfectly fit into where you are in life at the moment and work as an ideal soundtrack to it.

One of the coolest things I’ve been doing in the past year or so is discovering artists that have been around for years that I’d never really gotten into. It’ll usually start with a single I really like and a thought that I should check out their other stuff. Then, because they’ve been around a while, I’ve got a bunch of their old albums to go through and just fall in love with. It doesn’t always happen but when it does, it’s most excellent.

This summer it seems to be A Perfect Circle. I used to think they were too hard for my taste. When I first heard Judith it seemed on the border of too hard for me while still being excellent. This winter, when Passive came out for ‘Constantine,’ I looked up their latest album and liked it all. I’ve been distracted with other music between then and now but I’m finally getting into their previous two albums now and they’re fantastic. Exactly what I’m looking for actually.

The music just seems to fit where I am this summer. The lyrics of addiction only slightly describe things in my life but I can easily pull out other fitting messages. The music itself is bittersweet and makes me discontent but excited.

Thirteenth Step is a really cool album conceptually. Listening to the lyrics you can easily pick out the story of an addict. Beginning with a trip to a dealer, it follows the whole feelings of being high, losing loved ones and friends, denial, feelings of exhilaration and powerlessness and eventually on to the low point and seeking help.

Looking at the album, it’s twelve tracks, perhaps representing the 12 steps of a recovery program. The thirteenth step (the album’s title) could be the album itself as a method of being over it yet fearful of falling back into the old habits.

with your halo slipping down