“Everything you know about me is what I’ve sold you, dumb fuck. I sold out long before you ever even heard my name.”
That line isn’t indicative of most of Tool’s lyrical content, but it does say a lot about them. Lots of machismo, and an allusion to forced mystique.
Tool offers just the right combination of machismo and mystique to have become a massive commercial success by appealing to would-be metalheads who fancy themselves too smart for, I don’t know, Slayer or Korn, and artsy types who find something magical about a band that can play three-note riffs, as long as they’re in odd rhythms and overloaded with effects pedals.
Their singer can deliver a powerful holler or a smooth melody when he feels like it, but he sure spends an awful lot of time doing nothing, letting his bandmates jam through a lot of “now we’re quiet, now we’re loud” fluff that goes on long enough for dorky listeners to count the beats and say, “Hey! This riff is in 9/8! Aren’t I a savvy music listener?! Swing on the spiral!” Rumor has it that it’s during the instrumental sections when Mr. Maynard dreams up new concoctions for his wine business.
I was generous about those three-note riffs. A handful of Tool moments literally have one note played in various rhythms, and it’s always a low D. Always. I guess the band decided that D was the darkest and/or trippiest note out there, and since the most easily swayed group of pothead freaks—
PSYCHE!!! PSYCHE!!! I fucking love Tool! Fucking LOVE ‘EM!!! Did I fool you?! Or did I Tool you?!! Ha! A Tool pun!! Pardon my jubilation but this band rocks my tie-dyed socks off!! I love the dark vibes. I love the fat sound. I love the twists and turns. I love the crazy drumming that gives each song its own set of weird grooves. I love the all-over-the-place vocals and how sometimes a beautiful melody will emerge from tangled chaotic rubble. Smell the pretentiousness, baby! I love the long build-ups, the multi-part crescendos, the spacey guitar lines, and the rumbly bass. I apparently love a low D. I love how most of the songs sound pissed off as a car accident but how a few of them are utterly positive like the prime moments of a shrooms trip.
Hang on a moment while I take a puff from my Tool pipe and settle down and give you some actual…
Okay, so I’m sure you know about Tool, formed in L.A., four dudes from different places bringing different flavors into a thick stew of dark-ish metal-ish prog-ish emotion-ish brain-ish music. Tons of rhythmic diversity backed by a phenom drummer, not much in the way of melody from the guitar and bass but plenty of clever interplay and use of effects, and a singer with a big clean voice, except when he’s yelling or whispering or breathing heavily. Each album has longer, more complex songs than the one before it, and they generally evolve from the “Why don’t you go fuck yourself!” stylings to the more measured “We are born of one breath, one word” type of tone.
Are they pretentious? Maybe a little. But how unpretentious do you want your music to be before every band is Creedence Clearwater Revival? Are their lyrics pretentious? Some of them are wordy, but it mostly seems like from-the-heart emotional outpourings and complaints about society not always having its shit together. “Born to Be Wild” had already been written, so you could always listen to that if Tool isn’t your thing.
I love this band. A lot of people do. A lot of other people probably think they’re just okay, but have come to hate them for how highly regarded they are by everyone else. Tool could be the perfect band for an obsessed cult following, if only they weren’t so damn good that tons of people love them.
Opiate
1992
5 total assholes out of 10
Hey, I love this band, but I won’t lie. If I heard only this six-song EP and none of their other music, I would have quickly dismissed it.
The songs are mostly short, a lot of the lyrics are basic and repetitive, and the production quality doesn’t reveal any nuance. It’s certainly heavy — word has it that the record label forced them to pack their heaviest material onto this — but it’s a brand of heaviness that’s shoved into your mouth like a big spoon of plain oatmeal. Well, except for a snappy, funky bassline in “Hush” that sounds way out of place. At least you can tell that the drummer is a beast and that the singer has amazing power, so there’s that.
Two of the songs are recorded live, “Cold and Ugly” and “Jerk Off,” and they capture the band’s power and dynamics better than the rest of the EP. The title track “Opiate” is good too, mixing some melodic vocals with mid-tempo bumpiness, but the production tries to suck the soul out of it. I wonder if the band was traumatized by this release, because all the other ones sound meticulously produced. Better times were a’ comin’.
Undertow
1993
8 belligerent fuckers out of 10
Dim the lights, honey, this album is dark! At times, it sounds too dark, sludgy, and murky for its own good, that its most rocking parts don’t quite cut through, but it’s a drastic improvement. There’s a conscious effort to set a moody tone here that Opiate was missing.
“Sober” is the album’s hit song, and it’s a perfect example of Tool’s “less is more” riffing. The main bassline is literally the same chord played in a “bum-bum … [scratchy scratchy] … bum-bum” rhythm. Most of the other songs ride three- and four-note riffs, and often the verse riff is just a quieter version of the chorus riff. The songs get their character from the anguished vocals and the rhythms, which, even when in standard 4/4, have a way of bumping up and down and around.
While the band here shows a lot of concern for their sound — screechy distorted guitar, a distinctly stringy bass, drums and vocals that sound like they’re performed loudly but sit low in the mix — it’s not nearly as diverse as we’d get on the later albums.
There are some distinct moments — a Middle Eastern feel on “4 Degrees,” a four-minute instrumental sludge section on “Flood,” and an eye-rolling poetry cameo from Henry Rollins in the middle of “Bottom” — but it does tend to wear on you with its sameness.
Aenima
1996
10 silly shits out of 10
Whatever inspiration these guys had between their last album and this one … or whatever drugs they ingested … well, it must have been some good shit.
We’re getting the Tool that everyone raves about here, full of all new vibes, longer songs, more guitar and bass tricks, more intricate quiet parts that make the loud parts seem even louder, and more varied vocals with more thoughtful lyrics. I’ve seen some people call this album “industrial,” and yeah, there’s some machine sounds (mostly the drummer and his electric drumpads) and at-times buzzsaw guitar, but the music is far too fluid, melodic, and rockin’ to be industrial.
The dynamics are on display from the get-go on the opening track “Stinkfist,” where a less-is-more stuttering riff moves into a swaying, swinging, powerful chorus. Some of the vocals are distorted, others are clean, there’s singing and whispering and yelling. “Eulogy” starts off with mysterious tapping (it’s actually guitar) and just-as-mysterious electro tones (it’s actually Keenan humming into a megaphone and pressing the “on” button in rhythm) before building into a rock ’n’ roller coaster and ending on a section of loud, syncopated, one-note metal.
(Oh, by the way, since now I’m getting wistful about this band, it’s a good time to mention that NONE of their songs fade out. Each one has a constructed ending, which I’ve always appreciated.)
Let’s really pour on the pretension here with “H,” opening with a simple, heavily distorted bass riff, before a loud but slow chorus, then a sensual middle section featuring an interesting (yes, I’m gonna say it!) POLYRHYTHM (that’s two or more rhythms working together, according to the dictionary), and then more heaviness to finish it off. At 5:34 of this song there’s a thundering double-kick-drum roll and it’s like Danny Carey is sneering and saying, “Duh, I CAN play double bass like an angry metalhead … but I only do it in the perfect little spot BECAUSE I’M A GODDAMN ARTIST!” Hey, does anyone know what these lyrics are about? Just ask 100 Tool fans and you’ll get 100 different answers.
I really need to speed this review up. Okay, so “Forty-Six & 2” is killer, off-time shit weaving in and out of itself. “Hooker With a Penis” is the fastest, most straightforward song about how some kid says the band sold out and they’re like, “Yeah? So what?” The album’s least-revered song is “Jimmy,” but you can’t ignore the gorgeous movement of chords happening toward the end of it. “Pushit” is an 11-minute love song with more tender vocals turning into unhinged aggression and more polyrhythmic electric drums turning into some of the most badass metal on the whole thing. “Aenema” is a secondary hit song, complex and catchy, about L.A.’s soulless culture causing an earthquake (or something) and the ending actually rumbles like a goddamn earthquake. And “Third Eye” is a slow building, murky epic full of screechy guitar effects and some unexpected starts and stops, and you can bet your ass it’s about DRUGS!
Oh, and there are all these spooky non-musical interludes, which total about 10 minutes and serve as kind of a rest between songs. Wouldn’t call it “filler” like some people do considering the album is 77 minutes long, leaving you with a whopping 67 minutes of kickass music. (I majored in math.)
I think I made my point. I love this album. It’s powerful, musical, dynamic, challenging, yet cohesive, coated in a darkish, electronic sound that’s totally distinct.
Salival
2000
8 balls smashed out of 10
Not really an “album,” this is a curiously conceived mishmash of stuff on a CD in a box set with their music videos — but it is 73 minutes long, because we’re talking about Tool after all.
They start with three live recordings. “Third Eye” is mostly faithful to the original, and holy shit is it performed and recorded well. Same goes for the aggressive “Part of Me.” But “Pushit” has a totally rewritten five minutes, which is slower and sweeter than the original. Let’s call this portion of the CD one hell of an advertisement for Tool’s live shows.
More live stuff includes a druggy jam “Merkaba,” which is cool enough that I’m glad they put it on record, and a cover of “You Lied” by Justin Chancellor’s old band Peach, which I could do without.
There’s a rocking cover of Led Zeppelin’s “No Quarter,” sounding like it was recorded along with Aenima and quite far from the original, with some all new parts and a general Tool-esque treatment.
The secret song is “Maynard’s Dick,” sounding like it was recorded with Opiate, and I mean, I like it, but come on, it’s obviously a silly joke, maybe a parody of alternative rock of the time?
And there are two interludes. One is fine, the other is audio torture.
Tool never seemed like the type of band to have bonus tracks lying around, but they’re so good that they can haphazardly throw something like this together and we’d still eat it up.
Lateralus
2001
10 thieving bastards out of 10
What if you took all the power, skill, and artsiness from Aenima, but had songwriters that actually seemed happy? You’d get Lateralus, as evidenced by such lyrics as, “Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate the chance to be alive and breathing.” If you just threw up in your mouth, it’s okay, feel free to find a review of a band you can stand.
Why is it so positive? Maybe it was all the money and status these guys accumulated in the previous five years, as they went from “rock stars” to “mega rich rock stars” and were selling out arenas by the time this came out. It’s fitting because this expertly produced album sounds absolutely HUGE.
“The Grudge” is off-time, strange, and heavy, ending with an assault of intricate metal. “The Patient” is deliciously tender and touchy, full of more off-time stuff. The radio hit “Schism” is based around a juicy bass riff that’s in 6-and-a-half time (you can’t make this shit up, but Tool can!) and it has a trademark artsy middle section leading to a big multi-faceted crescendo. “Parabol” is all juicy touch (the only percussion on it is a few shimmering cymbal rolls) leading into the chugging “Parabola,” where we get those utterly positive lyrics mentioned above. “Ticks and Leeches” is the odd one out, a screamy outpouring of 7/8 metal, but even THAT has a slow, soft middle part. “Lateralus” pours on the positivity talking about the wondrous aspects of being human while featuring up-tempo rock, fancy drumming on top of a serene guitar lick, and ending with a pounding, relentless extended chorus. And the 22-minute three-parter, “Disposition,” “Reflection,” and “Triad” is like a mini concept album by itself, starting slow, pretty and haunting, Middle Eastern sounds, subtle use of synths, and finishing with some serious balls-out metal.
The heavy stuff is heavy as ever, but there’s more lightness overall in this album, and plenty of pretty singing. It has a way of feeling like everything fits into its proper spot. There aren’t guitar solos, for example, because in the rare moment that Adam Jones lets his fingers dance around quickly, there’s so much else going on that it’s more like just another part that moves the song forward. Keenan is more melodic than before, except on “The Grudge” and “Ticks and Leeches,” when he reminds you what an angry little man he can be. The playing is more complex, particularly the drumming, but doesn’t call attention to itself.
Whereas older Tool grabs your brain, shakes it around, and tosses you to the curb, leaving you thinking, “I’m a better person now for experiencing that madness,” this newer Tool grabs your brain, shakes it around, and gently lays you down on a couch, leaving you thinking, “Aww, I feel so good.”
Point made, I think. I love this album too. Can you endure two more glowing reviews?
10,000 Days
2006
9 blue green Jackie Chans out of 10
So, Tool had delved deep into dark themes with Aenima, then they realized life was good after all on Lateralus, so where did they go this time? Somewhere in the middle, it seems. 10,000 Days takes the musical complexity of Lateralus a few steps further but returns to the darker tone of Aenima.
The album’s single is the hard-rocking “Vicarious,” but it’s my least favorite Tool song since the Undertow days, and I always thought the more likeable song was “The Pot,” which is both sinister and super catchy, with tight twists and turns along the way.
“Jambi” is a unique, kickass song, emotionally rich and full of extremely difficult rhythms. And here’s a good time to mention the main criticism I hear about this album. It’s so damn musically complex that only prog-happy musicians can appreciate it. I don’t mind that, but my minor gripe is that it’s not nearly as thematic and cohesive as the previous albums, more of a collection of cool songs.
Speaking of cool songs, there’s the epic, 17-minute two-parter “Wings for Marie Pt 1” and “10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)” and it actually sounds like it took five years to write. It inches forward, riding a dark little bass riff, smoothly moving into all kinds of off-kilter instrumentation before a hearty payoff section, all while Maynard goes on about how his virtuous, deceased mother suffered through sickness while all her uber-religious friends are a bunch of phonies. It’s dark, moody, heavily textured, and fucking great, as long as you have the patience for it.
There’s “Rosetta Stoned,” a distinctly weird 11-minute song featuring Maynard babbling about an alien abduction and a “takes forever” build-up in the middle. And then there’s the slow, instrumental “Intension” leading to “Right in Two,” both pretty creepy but ultimately paying it off with kickass heavy metal by the end.
I love this album too, but maybe it’s just not quite as consistent or special to me as the last two.
Fear Inoculum
2019
9 wanton slumbers out of 10
Thirteen years of anticipation: man, that’s a lot of pressure. Given the expectations, this album is simultaneously considered a letdown (I naively hoped for a double album) and an impressive artistic achievement. With just six proper songs, not one of them under 10 minutes, and even fancier instrumentation than the last time around, it’s unapologetically Tool-ish.
No track cracks my top 10 favorite Tool songs (well, not yet, give it another year and then probably), nor does the album uncover totally new vibes or attitude. Sonically, it’s a blend of their previous albums, leaning toward the slow-building, musically rich end of their spectrum, and with certain bits and pieces sounding suspiciously like earlier bits and pieces. But in terms of musicianship, there’s some wild stuff on here. The extremely polyrhythmic “Pneuma” is out of this world. “7empest” is 15+ minutes of aggression that just keeps plowing forward into a million subtly different mini parts. Adam seems more free to wail away in certain spots, and Danny takes EVERY opportunity to let his virtuoso drumming blast through the speakers at you.
Some listeners complain that there are buildups that go forever without paying off, and I’ve also heard complaints that the vocals are missing the angsty screams we’ve come to expect. I can see it, but I still fucking love this album. What I like about it is that there are some uplifting parts, but it’s not in-your-face positivity a la Lateralus; the uplifting parts are sprinkled here and there.
It’s crisply recorded, weird, varied, challenging, colorful, and at times catchy. The song “Fear Inoculum” didn’t blow me away at first, but I sure was humming melodies from it long afterwards. “Descending” and “7empest” also have “getting stuck in your head” vocal lines despite all the intricate darkness happening around them.
The weakest track is probably the brooding “Culling Voices,” with direct lyrics and a simple structure by Tool standards. And there’s also a friggin’ drum solo, which at least has wacky synth sounds to go along with it, and if there was ever a drummer who actually SHOULD put a drum solo on record, it’s this guy.
It’s a logical step in the band’s evolution: longer, more complicated, occasionally sing-songy, but retaining enough of their earlier hard edge. It’s not the album you hand to someone to introduce them to Tool, but it’s one the band’s fans should be satisfied with.
Published October 2021