On Thursday my new random album
for review was Tool, but I didn’t finish listening to it before the weekend.
Over the long weekend I mostly
steeped myself in alt-country and folk music.
I just discovered an artist in the genre – Neko Case – and I love her stuff
and plan to get more. I also listened to
a couple of loners from my buddy Casey (no uploads, though – pay the
artist!). On Monday I even took a tour
through reviews in “Penguin Eggs” magazine looking for new artists and
discovered quite a few I want to check out in more detail.
Which is to say that I was not
terribly ready at an emotional level to return to plumb the depths of prog
metal that is Tool. However that is what
the dice gods decreed before the weekend began – and the dice gods will have
their due.
Disc 485 is… Aenima
Artist: Tool
Year of Release: 1996
What’s up with the Cover? Tool loves their screwed up covers. Previous albums revealed an alien rib cage
and a six armed priest, but this time we go even further into the land of H.P.
Lovecraft. This cover is a rudimentary square
pulsing with some kind of strange fire and emanating disembodied eyes. The photo I’ve taken doesn’t do it justice
though, because Tool put the picture in a special jewel case with textured
horizontal lines, so that when you move the CD back and forth, the strange fire
pulses and eyes fly about with the illusion of depth. I call this cover “The Lack of Colour Out of
Space.”
There are alternate images inside,
in case you prefer skinless leg grafts, naked contortionist floor shows, or
flying babies with back-spikes. How I
wish I were making any of that up.
How I Came To Know It: I have been a fan of Tool since my old room-mate
Greg first introduced me to them in the early nineties. I bought “Aenima” much later as I was
drilling through their collection, and probably have only had it for about ten
or twelve years or so.
How It Stacks Up: I have five Tool albums. I also briefly had a “Perfect Circle” album
but it didn’t grab me, and I sold it before I ever rolled it for review. Of the five Tool albums, I must risk the rage
of Tool fanatics everywhere and put “Aenima” fifth.
Rating: 3 stars
My two
favourite Tool albums are 1993’s “Undertow” and 2001’s “Lateralus,” so it
is strange to find the album in between not appealing to me nearly as strongly.
Which is
not to say “Aenima” is a bad album – it is actually a very good album – and it
marks Tools natural movement from the more grunge-rock style of “Undertow”
toward the more progressive and complex sound of “Lateralus.”
Once
again the drums of Danny Carey are in full glory, and on Aenima there are even
other elements of percussion worked in that aren’t drums per se, but still nail
down the rhythm of the songs. This was
particularly noticeable at the beginning of “Eulogy,” which just sounds like two hollow sticks being banged
together at first, but slowly builds into a complex, ultra-heavy rock song that
is worth the wait.
Tool
isn’t about guitar solos, so much as they are about riffs and creative drum
beats mixed together. These form songs
that generate simple visceral energy but provide a deep level of complexity if
you take the time to let your ear wander through them. If you’re not in the mood to be challenged
that’s OK too, it also works to just bob your head and rock out.
I will
sometimes complain about longer songs on the Odyssey, but Tool is a band that
knows how to properly use a longer song to fully develop a musical idea, and
then transport you there until you lose yourself in the labyrinths of their
construction. “Aenima” shows the beginning
of the sound the band would perfect on “Lateralus, and helps you appreciate it
by seeing it in its nascent form.
The
album’s lyrics are as angry as ever. The
anger runs the gamut, whether it is the quiet piano of “Message to Harry Manback” wishing cancer on its listeners, or the
loud and rebellious “Hooker with a Penis”
which is a rebuke to early fans that insist that Tool sold out to get
famous. Rev. Maynard sings “Hooker with a Penis” with a clear and
present rage at the hypocrisy of judgmental fans:
“All you know about me is what I've
sold you
…
I sold out long before you ever
heard my name.
“I sold my soul to make a record
…
And you bought one.”
The
ellipses are replacing some colourful insults to underscore Maynard’s point;
namely that if the band is a sell-out at least they are aware of their own
decisions, while the listener knows nothing more than what they’re told – a
mythology created by the very artist they seek to judge. It is a lesson that ‘early album only’ snobs
and music critics alike should take to heart.
“Aenima”
then takes the band’s anger to a whole new level, as they practically call for
a massive natural disaster to sink Los Angeles into the ocean. For all the many songs through history that
praised the city of their roots, “Aenima”provides a disturbing counterbalance, as the song snarls away for six and half minutes.
Songs
like “Aenima” provide the band time
to explore their rhythmic progressions and really work up a good smelly, angry
sweat. The one notable exception to this
on this album being the almost fourteen minute “Third Eye” which is just too all over the place to hit the mark. Here it isn’t the length so much as the
excess content.
If
anything, it is the shorter songs that let me down, seeming to be just mood
pieces of between half a minute and two and a half minutes to separate the
larger set pieces. I personally think
the album would hold together better without this filler.
Also,
even if individual tracks stretch their length out comfortably, at fifteen
tracks and over seventy-seven minutes of music, “Aenima” loses the comfort
overall.
Of
course, Tool is not about comfort – if anything the songs are designed to knock
you out of your comfort zone. “Aenima”
does a fine job of doing this, and as always the musicianship is exceptional. Still, despite the strong high points, I
always find myself preferring the visceral rock experience of “Undertow” and
the song construction and groove of “Lateralus,” leaving “Aenima” caught in the
middle.
This
experience – admittedly a very personal one given the overall quality of the
music – keeps it just a hair shy of true excellence, even as it proves that
there is no bad Tool album to be had.
Best tracks: Eulogy, Forty Six & 2, Hooker with a Penis,
Pushit, Aenima.
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