TOOL

While grunge had severed the bloating head of hair metal in the early nineties, it failed completely in making rock and roll dangerous again. The inward looking Seattle boys gave us a new combination of sounds that opened up the realm of possibility, but there wasn't a lot of new music that would really scare the pants off your parents. Until Tool. The band had a few minor hits, most notably the two chord "Sober" with it's refrain of "Jesus blows his fking whistle," which set the stage. But it was AENIMA that made Tool what they are now, probably the most influential band in modern heavy music.

The band had evolved quite a bit musically, with the signature circular bass riff taking center stage, and drummer Danny Carey starting to shine more and more. The songwriting had gotten quite a bit better, and with songs like "Stinkfist" and "Hooker with a PP," Tool firmly made a claim for being the most dangerous band out there. Maynard James Keenan's simultaneously tortured, twisted, and intelligent lyrics appealed to a wide array of young audience members. His voice would develop quite a bit over future projects but the emotional delivery was at full force from the beginning.

The songs on AENIMA are very riff based, played in straight time, and sometimes repetitive. Tool had not yet embraced prog sensibilities as full as they would on the subsequent album, and probably wouldn't still be around if they had. AENIMA was just the right degree of weird for the time. As is typical for Tool, there are a number of strange transition tracks. Some are complete throwaways but it added to the vibe. It must also be noted that some of the riffs on this album are among Tool's best, most memorable.

AENIMA was extremely progressive but when it came out no one would have thought "prog." Maybe "art metal" but not yet the genre defining work that would come on LATERALUS, and album I actually find more uneven. This album is an essential part of the history of modern rock in general, but that distinction will have to wait an album when were in the prog arena.

Standard distortion: who the hell told all this people that this standardized emotionless and flattening effect was that much interesting? It makes all notes in a phase sound the same, so it makes all phrases have the same expression, which makes all these bands sound the same.

Standard riffs, uniform phrases without harmony, and solos buried in distortion so that you won't be able to listen to the notes they're playing. Just slightly coloured noise building up and then calming down. Not much for enjoying here. Accordingly, the voice goes from whispered sections to shouting sections. Gabriel or Hammill do this in a single phrase, if necessary. But here you more or less know what's coming a minute or three in advance

Sometimes, the grooves have something. But they are over repetitive.

Of course, if you like this style, this record is ok, nothing special or original in it, I must say, but certainly well done inside its limited confines. But this decade we are getting a lot of this thing, even though it does not normally offer anything new, so it may well suit you.

I buy this album on a discount in a cd store... I thought it would be interesting, so many people was talking about this mainsteam "prog" band., so I go and spin it like 3 times, then I get the picture why it was in discount... sure no one buy such a bad album... yes, this is not for a prog fan, mantain as far as you can of this album, please...

OK, I don't have any other experience with the rest of the productions of this band, but it's because of this album, that really let me down... I promise to never buy an album without check some songs before or something like that... so, what is wrong about it... let's see...

One, there's no sense at all in the music direction, you know, the songs are filled with little noises and post production efects that really do not bring nothing to the mix... The sound is horrible, seems a little low budget to me, but the problem is that it is intentional... you know, they seem to be too much under Grunge influential at that time, and I like Grunge, but this guys seem to not fit on that mood...

Two, there's no melody at all... the quality of the voice of this guy is horrible -at least in this album, because I like his work on A Perfect Circle-... and the band in general sound too much a "garage band"... Like they were just plugged in and record it below effects of a strange substance...

and last... because the atmosphere is so freaking though... everytime I tried to give the album a chance I always wanted to be out of all that low self estime, axious, dark moods that feel so dense and that don't take you to anywhere, just leave you there feeling pathetic about everything...

So, maybe I give them a shot sometime, but deffenitely not in this album... WARNING, stay away from it... maybe you can contaminain yourself if you stand near to it... one star...

Sorry for my bad english I am from Argentina

'Lateralus' had a few really great songs on it, such as 'The Patient' and 'Schism.' There were also songs, like this that I could never get into. It's decent hard rock, but it doesn't have that sense of creativity and innovation that a band like Tool should be doing. The video, on the other hand is one of the strangest videos I've ever seen, and even scary at times.

'Parabola' isn't terrible, but it doesn't give me that feeling of 'never having heard something like this before' that I've felt a suprising number of times from this band. The things I love about Tool are always the sonic nuances and clarity the music brings, but 'Parabola' doesn't really work out too be too much more to me than a hard rock song accompanied with an overdose of guitar sludge.

Forty-eight time signature changes. From that parameter alone, it would be hard to write a cohesive and successful song. But here it is; Tool's glorious opus and masterpiece-song.

This song has complexity, beauty and rage. I would not call myself a fervent Tool fan but this is a song that really resonates with me.

The video (as always for Tool) is very good. It's not like your typical video where the camera focuses on the singer strutting around. The video is almost like a cartoon; very cryptic and seemingly drug-induced. Strange.

I'm not the biggest fan of Lateralus, but it was worth the purchase if only for this song.

4.5 Stars!