After a hard-fought ultimate game,
I’ve awakened from a refreshing nap and an equally refreshing shower ready to
take on the next review in the CD Odyssey.
Disc 425 is…Opiate
Artist: Tool
Year of Release: 1992
What’s up with the Cover? It’s fun with double exposures! Here, the result is a creepy six armed priest. Listen to enough Tool and you’ll quickly
discover they’re not too keen on religion.
How I Came To Know It: This was another album
that my old roommate Greg put me on to (along with “Undertow” reviewed back at
Disc 131). Greg was in on the whole
Tool scene from the ground floor, and brought me along for the ride.
How It Stacks Up: I have five Tool albums. “Opiate” is only an EP, so it is hard to
compare, but I’ll put it 4th anyway.
Rating: 4 stars
“Opiate” is only an EP, but in
just six songs it captures just as much of Tool’s ferocity as any of their
excellent works that would follow. Here,
in 1992 we see the beginning of a musical journey that form legions of
dedicated fans, throngs of enthralled critics and more than likely a few
sleepless nights for the more squeamish among us.
Tool is a band that gives voice to
the underbelly of existence. Lead singer
Maynard James Keenan isn’t interested in sharing his love of puppies with us. He prefers to explore the mysteries of the
universe, usually finding them cold and discomfiting.
When he sings about the human
condition, and he finds unexpected kinships in our insecurities. On “Opiate” this is exemplified by “Cold and Ugly” a song about facades and
fears:
“Trembling at the thought of feeling
Wide awake and
keeping distance
Nothing seems to penetrate
her.
‘cause she's scared as hell.
“I am frightened too
I am frightened”
When Keenan sings “I am frightened too” it comes from a
deep an honest place where he sounds genuinely frightened; for himself, for the
girl in the song, maybe for all of us.
It isn’t often you’ll hear a metal lyric that admits to being scared,
but that is the charm and the horror of Tool.
They scare you into paying attention to the lizard brain inside all of
us, and that rarely paints a pretty picture.
When “Opiate” strolls away from
the personal experience, it tends to get even darker. Focusing on the realm of the civilized, Keenan
sees only hypocrisy and self-serving power structures. “Hush”
is a guttural scream of defiance against censorship in all its forms, replete
with and a torrent of expletives that seem entirely at home within Keenan’s core
anger that he can’t say what he wants to, even if he’s not serious. Everyone has to govern what they say once in
a while, of course, but Tool gives a voice to the frustration that can cause.
It is hard to figure what they
feel they can’t say on this first record, mind you. Topics include nightmares, fear, censorship,
masturbation (strangely not the song
called “Jerk Off”), murder and on the
title track, a vicious assault on organized religion.
Most metal songs called “Opiate” would be about drug use, but
leave it to Tool to be referencing Karl Marx’s famous quote about religion. I’ll leave whatever you think of that to you –
I blog about music, not politics or religion – but the song itself is a breath stealing
five minutes and twenty seconds. Like a
breath, it flows in and out, now slow and troubled, now fast and angry until it
ultimately explodes into a minute long drum solo that I can only call a rape of
the ears.
After the song ends (it is the
final one on the album) we get that annoying habit of early nineties metal
albums; the hidden track. This one comes
after about a minute of silence, and is a fairly entertaining little tale of a
couple of oddball characters that go a bit crazy. One takes acid and thinks he’s a fire hose,
and another takes ecstasy and has sex with the furniture. I wish it were a separate track, and if it
were I’d still listen to it, but it is a minor qualm on an otherwise great
record.
The high degree of musicianship the
band would later become famous for is on early display throughout. Most EPs you will hear from early in a band’s
career sound like they were recorded in an oil barrel and only listenable
because you can hear the promise of what will come later in the band’s
career. Not so, Tool, who Apollo-like spring
fully clothed from the head of rock, playing intricate arrangements as tightly
as any ten year veterans.
The album is anchored by the rhythm
section of Paul D’Amour’s bass and Danny Carey’s drums. Carey is always great, and has gone on to
have a body of work only matched by Rush’s Neil Peart in terms of its ambition
and ability. D’Amour left the band in
1995 and despite the great bass playing on later records, listening to “Opiate”
made me wish he’d been there for their full career.
Like the full-length albums that
would follow it, “Opiate” isn’t music for the squeamish, and it doesn’t pull
its punches. If you are easily offended,
seek your pleasures elsewhere. As for
me, I think it is yet another classic entry in Tool’s great discography that
has only one serious weakness; it’s too short.
Best tracks: Hush, Cold and Ugly, Opiate.
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