Tool part IV

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Op maandag 12 december 2005 21:55 schreef _Etter_ het volgende:

[..]

http://www.roadrun.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=45484

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Op dinsdag 29 november 2005 12:21 schreef sir_Tachyon het volgende:


Met mijn pendel boven getallen-cirkel kwam ik uit op: 23 mei 2006. Ik ben net zo benieuwd als jullie.

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according to sources close to the band, and is looking at an April or May release for the disc

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Op vrijdag 16 december 2005 12:20 schreef mr_cucumber het volgende:
Kennelijk komt volgens Kink FM de plaat in april uit en staat men op Pinkpop komend jaar.

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What became of subtlety?
May 30 '05 (Updated May 31 '05)

Author's Product Rating
Product Rating: 5.0

Pros
Calling it a thought provoking and cerebral masterpiece doesn't do it justice.

Cons
You can't have sex with sound waves.

The Bottom Line
Aenima is as challenging as it is rewarding as it is vulgar and silly. In other words, my all-time favorite album.

Full Review
When I look at my album playlist, Aenima doesn't just pop out, it grabs me by the neck and drags me in with it.

The album title's wordplay speaks volumes for it, melting Carl Jung's theory of the soul's existence and purpose (Anima) across what dictionary.com describes as The injection of liquid into the rectum through the anus for cleansing, for stimulating evacuation of the bowels, or for other therapeutic or diagnostic purposes. (Enima).

The end product of these two clear distinctions makes Aenima my favorite album of all time by default. In the span of 77 minutes the album makes every statement a broad one, in fact every statement is so nuanced that Tool has to space it out with sonic filler for little reason more than that every real track on here demands your immediate and undivided attention.

Vocalist Maynard James Keenan really defines the core of his vocals on this album. He thickly employs the textures of telephone static to his voice on various occasions through out the album. His voice is already as far as I'm concerned a piece of art within itself, but here he has the range to create two distinct voices for this piece. His normal pitch is piercing, with the static added it becomes downright eerie.

Add to this the fact that he plays a devil's advocate in nearly every song. This is pointed out first on the explosive Stinkfist, which starts with a deceivingly odd guitar discord effect only to squeeze out every last note into a single red line, and then explode into what is one of my favorite riffs of all time. The theme here is desensitization, a cultural skewering of metaphorical social indecency symbolized as, well, anal fisting.

Even more genius than the initial metaphor the song poses is the way everything is worded together. The first chorus drifts in with a singsong effect of a seesaw swinging backwards in an opposite dimension.

Something has to change
Undeniable dilemma
boredom's not a burden anyone should bear
Constant overstimulation numbs me
But I would not want you any other way

The soft pleading could be likened to an angel/devil on my shoulder type bit, and although it's immenently perverse the final message is left unclear, and the shreds of whatever the song was initially about is left to nothing but the odd/awkward sense of emotion that backs it.

Something kind of sad about
The way that things have come to be
Desensitized to everything
What became of subtlety?

That isn't to say this isn't a song of immediate gratification. It is pure rock, no matter how many various shifts it takes in direction. Screams of I don't want it! I just need it! To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive! move the song toward the range of an addict about to crack. For all this song does, that verse might describe it well. I find this song infinitely listenable, and oddly enough it seems to get better with each listen.

Adam Jones is the guitarist here, as well as the seethingly abstract visual aspect that the band is most known for. His riffs are image-inspiring. Rollercoaster uneasy, rickety to no end, and elegant to a fault, everything is here for a reason on Aenima. The stop motion camera effects applied to the band's videos fit the music even better. It constantly feels like it's moving to one direction, pausing, and then moving to another. The phrase It's not what you say but the way that you say it fits Tool perfectly.

Sure Alice in Chains and Staind tackle(d) addiction on a regular basis, but only this band sees it as erratically shaking limbs, insomniatic image warping and shufflings of bodies dragging themselves around as if on strings. It's a mock art school tactic, and I'm not just speaking of their Stinkfist or Aenima videos, but the concept of the album as a whole.

The artwork is as nuanced as the music is. A picture of a naked body with its head curled into its chest "decorates" the CD, along with various other little snippets such as Bill Hicks posing as a doctor fixing mister keenan with leg braces if I recall correctly. Even more interesting is the little fact that you can tear off each side of dotted liner notes and slide it into the place of the cover. Even MORE interesting is that if you slide two particular pictures into the slot there are vertical teeth that make the pictures move in the same way those crackerbox baseball cards do. In one is the naked body on the floor "performing" in front of the band members while Keenan throws a flower to it. He's naked too, of course. ...Of course.

The other is a little snippet of California breaking off of America in a bit of standup popularly done by the previously mentioned "dead hero", Bill Hicks. Hicks' dry wit might have been what rubbed off most on the band. Three of the tracks allude to him or his standup in some form.

Eulogy might, or it might not. With Aenima your reaction during and afterward will be heavily affected by whatever you come in with. In another brushstroke of original nonobjective vague as hell genius, Eulogy is an eight and a half minute epic that could only be surmised in cliff notes as being anti-authority, but even that's reaching.

Now I'm going to describe it but don't think me strange for overdramatizing it. The first two minutes are a clicky, quiet, catchy little intro. 1234, 11234, 123123 is what the little tapping sounds into while the bass and/or guitar's feedback atmosphere draws a dead quiet chapel with no lights, no windows, just an altar with a microphone. To this Keenan steps up like a child as the riff finally builds and breaks to acceptable distance, his telephone voice muffling the humanity in his breath.

He had a lot to say
He had a lot of nothing to say
We'll miss him

The sarcasm is as elastic as the guitar is, when the chorus finally pounds in underneath a waterfall of pin and needle instrumentation we find that he's now dropped the microphone and is now screaming directly at the corpse at the center of the chapel.

WELL SOOOO LONG
WE WISH YOU WELL
TOLD US HOW YOU WEREN'T AFRAID TO DIE
WELL SOOOO LONG
DON'T CRY
DON'T FEEL TOO DOWN
NOT ALL MARTYRS SEE DIVINITY
AT LEAST YOU TRIED

Immature and genius come as a collective package with this band. The final bit of indignation is spurred out of the gradually weirdening psychadelic tinges as Keenan then proceeds to grab the corpse and shout a spit-laden curse into his ear

Come down
Get off your ****ing cross
We need the ****ing space
To nail the next fool marytr.

This is all topped off with a scream that only The Grudge from their later Lateralus can contend with.

The anger takes a backseat to regret in the next track, H, an infectious injection of venom that best exposes the band's rarely admitted fragile emotional side. Best known for its grinding guitar intro, this is furthered by a very delicate amount of guitar reverb and drumwork that starts thicks and bounces out like a ball getting closer to the ground each time it comes down. Keenan, who is one of my favorite lyricists ever, has a rounded sense of completion to all his wordplay.

What's coming through is alive
What's holding up is a mirror
What's singing songs is a snake and he's
Looking to turn my p*ss to wine

In the depths of the song it speaks of someone on the verge of tears.

The snake behind me hisses
What my damage could have been
My blood before me begs me
Open up my heart again

This is another track that is for me infinitely listenable.

This is followed by Useful idiot, a 38 second bit of static. Of the 15 tracks on here, five are filler and one is an intro, which rounds it off at exactly nine actual tracks. Added together it runs in at about eight minutes of filler, which is ultimately intended as a spacer between the tracks. One of Undertow's problems was that in the kaleidascope of guitars and screams the music often melted together, particularly (actually only) on the second half. With the filler, everything is left comfortably chilled. So, yes, I'm saying the filler isn't just a good thing, but a necessary thing. So there.

Forty Six and 2 is Tool's schizoid guide to self-help. A neon-threaded weaving of guitars untangles as the backgrounded whispers form into words. Themes of a snake are again mentioned in the idea of a shadow shedding its skin and breaking out of its mold.

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could have been
I've been wallowing in my own confused and
Insecure delusions

Behind three amazing tracks, this follows in the same fashion to cap off four effectively explosive tracks that carry in them enough ideas for two albums worth of organized insanity.

The best part of Forty Six and two is probably the screeching ending, guitar fingernails scratching a chalkboard in dead space while Keenan pronounces Forty Six and 2 is just ahead of me. As slow as some of the intros are, they waste no time with the explosions of their finales.

Message to Harry Manback is fun for the whole family. Ever been harrassed by an angry italian man over seagull sounds and a sad piano? Only every other day? Well, you should feel right at home being harrassed in this track as italian spoken slurs are threaded between such "interesting" little snippets such as you know one in three americans die out of cancer/ you know, I'm involved in black magic?/ you're gonna die out of cancer I promise.

Hooker With a Penis is a whole other affair, this track sounding as an homage to their Opiate days, it has more bang than melody. But the bang is lovely, and the lyrics are funny, so I can't complain. You see, Maynard James Keenan met a boy wearing van 501's and a dope beasty tee and new tattooes that claimed that he was OGT back from '92 for their first EP and in between sips of coke he told him that he thought they were selling out, laying down and sucking up to the man.

Well now I've got some advice for you little buddy
Before you point your finger
you should know that I'm the man
If I'm the man then you're the man and he's the man as well
So you can point that ****ing finger up your ***

Poetry in motion. It may just be a distraction, but it's a quirky amount of it in just the right places that makes this track worthy of standing beside the last four. With that said, it's still the worst on the album.

Intermission is an interesting little organ bit that rolls in with a strangely soothing playfulness to it. Of course Tool can't allow that so just as you get comfortable this track leads right into the burn of the intro riff to jimmy. The intro riff and Intermission are the identical melody, which gives the whole thing an odd feeling. This is another track similar to H. This time around, however, things are darker, and weirder, and remniscent of getting lost in a crop circle out in Ohio.

If you ever watch one of those unsolved-paranormal-mystery-type shows on the Sci-Fi channel, you'll know what this is about. Just kidding. Nobody watches the Sci-Fi channel.

This is one of the lesser mentioned tracks on the album (For the lack of immediate bang) but for me it's a personal favorite. I suppose in the deepest reaches of deja vu and disconnected childhood memories is where jimmy (james. as in maynard james. as in maynard james keenan. bang.) sleeps.

Eleven and she was gone
Eleven is when she waved goodbye
Eleven is standing still
Waiting for me to free her by coming ho o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o me (home)

I even have difficulty picking out which lyrical examples to give because every phrase spoken is as important as what came before it, and it's all beautiful.

Under a dead Ohio sky
Eleven has been and will be waiting
Defending his light and wandering
/
Eleven I have found you
I am wide awake and headed home

This strange anthem to two people coming together is another track that I find betters on repeat plays.

With Die Eier Von Satan (The eggs/balls of Satan)we meet more slight distractions. Behind a chugging drumbeat we get a german voice whispering his evil secrets that slowly build into what sounds like a nazi rallied set of screams. Those secrets translated: A recipe for cookies. I'm sure everybody knows this by now, still, it's hilarious in its own way, especially if you play this for other people and tell them it's something completely different, I.E. Hitler's last will and testament before he shot himself. Why he shot himself to a drum beat and guitar scratching, however, will forever be a mystery.

Push it (Remove the space and read it you wuss) takes the phrase "tough love" to new and disturbing heights. If Three Days Grace were able to form a complete thought in those thick, vacuous skulls of theirs, this is what (I Hate) Everything about you would expose itself to really be. Near ten minutes of spacy music begins with little more than buzzing fly type noises and builds into a cavern of deft voices and lost thoughts.

Let us compare Three Days Grace's and Tool's varying shades of genius:

Three Days Grace: I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU WHY DO I LOVE YOU?!

Tool: Rest your trigger on my finger,
bang my head upon the fault line.
Take care not to make me enter.
'cause if I do we both may disappear

Three Days Grace I STILL HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU WHY DO I LOVE YOU?!

Tool: If, when I say I may fade like a sigh if I stay,
You minimize my movement anyway,
I must persuade you another way.

There's no love in fear.

Three Days Grace: I HATE YOU HATE I HATE YOU HATE

Tool: Just remember I will always love you,
Even as I tear your ****ing throat away.
But it will end no other way.

Three Days Grace: I HATE-

Cesaro Summability is baby screams put to what sounds like an engine revving on mars. More filler.

Aenema is the broadest statement the album makes. Again here Keenan plays devil's advocate. In the span of 6:40 he pleads in favor of an armageddon, and by the end of 6:40 you might find yourself agreeing with him. Keep in mind this album was released in '96 when everybody believed an arbitrary date made by man would influence the coming of the end of the world somehow.

The drums are probably the most notable part of this track, having a propeller intensity to their build. Danny Carey is no doubt one of the most impressive drummers known to man, and here the odd signatures and tempo changes find him right at home. His drumming style has a certain symettry to it, where every note can be heard no matter how fast he plays. It's even more fascinating seeing him banging on his huge drumkit in a live setting.

Some say a comet will fall from the sky
Followed by meteor showers and title waves
Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still
Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipsh*its

While it uses Bill Hicks' theory as a guideline, the target here is on the annoyances of late 90's-today's pop culture. He attacks L. Ron Hubbard's scientology, fake politicians and "hip gangster wannabes" in one broad verse, where on another he attacks those guys with goatees who sit outside starbucks and make sharp remarks about nothing in belief that they're being "hipsters" in between their visits to the gap. Chandler from Friends would be a good example of this type of guy.

Fret for your Figure/latte/lawsuit/hairpiece/prozac/pilot/contract/car

The best part of the song is the breakdown at the end.

'Cause I'm praying for rain
I'm praying for tidal waves
I want to see the ground give way
I want to watch it all go down

(-) Ions is another interesting bit of filler. Positive ions supposedly have a negative effect on the body and are emitted by electronic devices such as the computer you are reading this from right now (Run!). Negative ions are found in nature, such as waterfalls and streams, and have a positive effect on the body. I have no idea what this actually has to do with the track though, which is essentially someone recording a tesla coil with thunder in the background. Listen to it with earphones on. It's freaky.

Third Eye is the album's finale, a loud, twisting, angry, funny, sad, sarcastic, optimistic, dreamlike, out of body experience of a song. In essence it's everything that makes this album great condensed into 13 minutes of shifting energies.

According to the big book of mock spirituality, the third eye is a chakra (energy point) located near the two real eyes. Supposedly it effects premonition. Hey, radical new age hipsters and bored teenagers alike pay attention! Here's a test to see how open your third eye is!

http://www.eclecticenergies.com/chakras/chakratest.php

Yay! I'm a little concerned I got 96% on the crotch one though...

One of the best parts of this track is the breakdown,

So glad to see you
I've missed you so much

Sung sadly and frantically to the tune of "row row row your boat". The whole thing feels like a dry desert storm crashing into a drugged lapse of reason of sorts.

Shrouding all the ground around me
Is this holy crow above me
Black as holes within a memory
Blue as our new second sun
I stick my hand into the shadow
Pull the pieces from the sand
To try attempt to reassemble
To see just who I might have been
I do not recognize the vessel
But the eyes seem so familiar
Singing one familiar song

Of their three main releases, this is my favorite ending. To its last moments screams of

PRYING OPEN MY THIRD EYE are spit until the distortion takes its final breath and dies.

Tool is one of my favorite bands and this is my favorite album by them, their pinnacle, I suppose. They level in so much variety with this release that it's amazing it stays as dead-set focused as it does the whole way through. The black background of the album's cover describes the whole of Aenima well, a black canvas of dead space with limitless possibilites lying in its stark cerebral creativity.

Every band member works its instrument to the bone until the music doesn't just pour out of the speakers, it climbs out on its hands and knees, screams at you, floods the walls with dust and smoke and stares at you with three paranoid eyes from the corner of your room. I say "it", because "it" is always a variable with Tool. It all comes together like an out of focus camera, where often enough you can tell that even the band members leave some things to mystery.

Like that briefcase in Pulp Fiction. The trickiness of the human brain'll always construct something much more grandiose than anything a writer could compose with his feeble words. The term out of sight and out of mind, however, doesn't apply here. It'll be in your mind no matter what.

Recommended
Yes

Great Music to Play While: Listening

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Op vrijdag 16 december 2005 12:20 schreef mr_cucumber het volgende:
Kennelijk komt volgens Kink FM de plaat in april uit en staat men op Pinkpop komend jaar.

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Op vrijdag 16 december 2005 13:29 schreef mr_cucumber het volgende:
Hopelijk doen ze nog een clubtour oid. 013 of Paradiso (of het Paard ) zou mooi zijn.

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Op vrijdag 16 december 2005 18:53 schreef maniack28 het volgende:
idd, vote Tool for Lowlands Dat is waar de band thuishoort, niet op dat stinkende Pinkpop

En btw... als Lowlands doorgaat in de trend van vorig jaar (veel grote commerciele bands en herhalingen) liever ook niet daar dan, dan maar Sziget

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Op vrijdag 16 december 2005 18:55 schreef Laton het volgende:

[..]

Niks mis met lowlands...ga gewoon naar de bands die je niet kent..en sowieso dj feest tot 6 uur ..dus boeien wat er komt eigenlijk.

maar goed..Tool liever helemaal niet op een festival maar gewoon extra zaaloptredens graag.

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Op vrijdag 16 december 2005 19:24 schreef maniack28 het volgende:

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Ik had het meer over het type mensen eigenlijk, dat op die bands afkomt Maar goed, ik heb liever een festival, spaart me weer 30 euro uit (Tool treedt namelijk niet op voor 15 of 20 euro )

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Op vrijdag 16 december 2005 18:53 schreef maniack28 het volgende:
idd, vote Tool for Lowlands Dat is waar de band thuishoort, niet op dat stinkende Pinkpop

En btw... als Lowlands doorgaat in de trend van vorig jaar (veel grote commerciele bands en herhalingen) liever ook niet daar dan, dan maar Sziget

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Op vrijdag 16 december 2005 19:27 schreef HAL9000S het volgende:
Ik denk dat tool teveel mensen zou trekken voor een 013 of Paradiso, daarom beter op een festival als lowlands idd Ze staan iig erg hoog op m'n verlanglijstje.