Tool in Review - Music Mumblings
With the silent but triumphant return of DagonDogs.com, what better way to celebrate than with an article about an entertainment medium that is rarely discussed on the website? Music! What’s more, it shall be about my favorite band! Why? Tool, despite having never officially separated or gone on hiatus, has finally released their new album, Fear Innoculum, a whole thirteen years since the previous studio album.
Having been in a band for six+ years and not released a studio album of our own, I can relate. However, I’d be lying if I also said that I thought Tool would ever release an album after 10,000 Days back in 2006. Yet, the unthinkable has finally happened in 2019: Kingdom Hearts III was finally released (14 years after the release of Kingdom Hearts II) and Tool has a new album. With all these other miracles happening, I have to ask: when is Jesus going to finally show up again? But I digress, as usual.
Tool has been one of those bands with which I’ve had a love-hate relationship. On the one hand, they’re my favorite band, because I have found that no other music group has managed to surprise and captivate me over the years upon listening to their songs multiple times. I love the way their songs would take me on journeys with unique timing and tones. I love how the lyrics would often have so many meanings layered under the rhythm of the words. I love how so many of the songs that I initially disliked have grown into favorites.
On the other hand, Tool has managed to become something of a joke for me. The fact that they didn’t have any of their albums available on any online streaming services until August of 2019 is pretty ridiculous, even with all the legal battles they were going through for the past few years. Their reputation for being eccentric or egotistical, along with the somewhat standoffish attitudes that some band members have shown toward their fans or toward interview questions about Tool has always rubbed me the wrong way. Not to mention, the ravenously immature and arrogant people who seem to make up a vast majority of their fanbase—who are not afraid to let you know in social media comments how smart/cool they are for liking a band that’s better than your favorite one—is just embarrassing.
Nonetheless, I put my “hate” aside for Tool and still listen to them—even more now than in the past few years, since they finally put their albums up on streaming services. I have my favorite albums that I never get tired of and I have the albums that I’m just willing to listen to on occasion. Now, at last, I finally have the album that I’ve been waiting for since I was still in community college. Where do they all stack up as a collection of albums? Scroll to the bottom for the tier list or read on to see my thoughts on each.
We could consider the numerous live recordings and demos out there, other unofficial recordings, and even the various side projects of certain band members. However, for this article, we’re just going to use the releases that I know and to which I have listened.
Opiate (1992)
Something reminiscent of my own band’s demos, Optiate has several live performances mixed in among the “studio” recordings because the band was young, they took the best versions of each song they had at the time, and they put whatever they could on a CD. Released before the group really started getting crazy with math timing and super-long songs, this album is mostly made up of angry, punkish, grungy songs that would put them right alongside Alice in Chains, The MIsfits, and Nirvana. The bass and guitars have a grinding tone that, paired with the aggressive drums, make Opiate a much more suitable album to listen to when you want something simple and angry. The lyrics of most of the songs are not as cryptic or subtle as later Tool songs would come to be, but the messages are pretty clear in songs like Hush (which has certainly become a more relevant song with the woke culture these days), Jerk-Off, and Opiate. I don’t typically listen to this album when I’m in the mood for Tool because of how different it is from the rest of their catalog, but it is a relatively short listen by comparison. Plus, sometimes I just enjoy listening to the harsh grungy tones of their old work.
Favorite songs:
Hush
Part of Me
Cold and Ugly (live)
Jerk-Off (live)
Undertow (1993)
The first “studio” album of Tool, Undertow is sometimes regarded as the last “good” album by the most self-righteous of their fans who liked them before you did. You can hear some of their early attempts at experimenting with the longer song format and math-metal timing that would earn them a reputation in the progressive metal space. However, I find Undertow to have more in common with Opiate than the albums that would follow. It still has some of that aggressive, grindy, grunge sound that overwhelmed the previous CD. There are songs like Sober—the big single off the album that propelled their careers—that resemble the slower, plodding, melodic songs for which the band is known. Tracks like Crawl Away and Swamp Song are definitely more in line with how the band sounded in their early days. Since my preference for Tool tends to lie with their albums that followed Undertow, I like how the album starts a lot more than how it ends—the first three tracks are easily my favorites but I start to lose interest a bit as I approach the titular track. Still a decent album, nonetheless.
Favorite songs:
Intolerance
Prison Sex
Sober
Swamp Song
Aenima (1996)
This is the turning point. Aenima was a big hit for Tool and is probably the album that earned them a great deal of recognition and reputation as a prog-rock powerhouse. Other than the filler tracks that range from goofy fun to pointless and annoying, I like every song on this album. It starts strong and ends especially strong. When I first listened to Aenima, I would casually put it on, but then skip to the one or two songs that I liked the most. Over time, I started to give each track a chance and eventually, I learned to appreciate each one as it took me on a mental journey, both rhythmically and lyrically. This method of introducing myself to Tool’s albums continued with Lateralus and 10,000 Days.
From all the subtle meanings in Stinkfist’s overt references to sexual acts to the more metaphysical pondering in Forty-Six & 2, to the sarcastic metaphors for “selling out” in Hooker with a Penis, to the blatant disgust the singer has for Los Angeles in Aenima, this album goes in a lot of different places and easily sits in my top 3. While the bass has always been extremely present in all of Tool’s work from the very beginning, it’s in Aenima that the bass really goes in some interesting and unique directions. It takes center stage in some situations and pulls you in with its mysterious rhythm before the inevitable hit of the drums and guitar.
Favorite songs:
Stinkfist
Forty Six & 2
Push It
Aenima
Third Eye
Salival (2000)
I almost don’t want to include this, because it’s a weird non-album group of songs that was included in a VHS/DVD. However, there are a few things of note that compel me to include it.
Of all the albums on here, I would say that Salival is probably the one you could skip. Not because it’s bad. In fact, it has probably my favorite live version of a song on here. It’s because Salival doesn’t bring much new to the table. The main reason to listen to this is for the live tracks at the start and the covers. The Peach and Led Zeppelin covers are good, but not good enough to listen to as much as the other live tracks. Third Eye opens with a spooky monologue from Tim Leary who repeats “Think for yourself. Question authority” and slowly transitions into an incredible version of their longest track on Aenima. The band plays it a little differently and the singer puts his all into the vocals in a way I have never heard in person and likely never will. Likewise, Pushit is a great listen just because of how the band can transform one of their more ambiguous and abstract songs from Aenima and play it in a different way.
Favorite songs:
Third Eye (live)
Pushit (live)
Lateralus (2001)
I am one of those fans; this is my favorite album. Some days, I prefer listening to Aenima or 10,000 Days, but I still keep coming back to Lateralus as THE album for me. The reason is that I cannot think of an album with more songs that have managed to surprise me multiple times after listening to them for so many years. Whether it’s by noticing lyrics I had never thought about before, or a guitar riff that managed to hide beneath the drums and bass on a different set of headphones for years, or just the range of different emotional tones each song travels through from start to finish, Lateralus continues to surprise and captivate me. This album’s subjects start with weighted anger, move to frustration through boredom and gaps in communication, to feelings of insignificance, to an awakened state of peace. Each song ties all these subjects together with amazing guitar riffs, bass lines, and drum tracks that either accentuate or juxtapose the intended tone of the lyrics. Even in the moments in which the lyrics focus on the ideas of peace of mind and enlightenment, the drums steadily push you through the powerful guitar and bass that give each song an element of aggression. Each song has a moment where it reaches a crescendo peak of power and exhilaration. However, what makes Laeralus so interesting as an album is what each song does with those moments, how the songs get to those moments, and how the journey is completed within the song.
Favorite songs:
The Grudge
The Patient
Schizm
Lateralus
10,000 Days (2006)
10,000 Days is a delicious sandwich of raw power, emotion, and experimentation, where the bread that holds it all together is the tastiest part. I think this album begins and ends with the two best tracks, but it is still packed with some great songs in the middle that I would gladly listen to any day of the week. With the fewest filler tracks of any of their albums since Undertow, 10,000 Days has a bell curve of brilliance and is incredibly arranged. It’s difficult to explain what makes this album so good without discussing the strengths of each individual song, but I wanted to keep the review short. All I can say is that when Vicarious, Right in Two, or Rosetta Stoned randomly come on somewhere in the house, I, like a dog wandering a forest full of howling wolves, can’t help but raise my head and instinctively sing along like an idiot.
Favorite songs:
Vicarious
Jambi
Rosetta Stoned
Right in Two
Fear Inoculum (2019)
At last, we come to the thing that made me want to write this article in the first place. In fact, I wanted to talk about this one more than the others. I’ve seen the titles of various review articles online praising Fear Inoculum as the second coming of Tool we’ve all been waiting for. However, I’ve avoided reading them because I didn’t want their opinions to affect my own. Having listened to it several times, I would say I remain unimpressed. I’m not disappointed, because I didn’t really have high expectations. In fact, considering how I actually disliked every Tool upon initially listening to them, only for them to become some of my favorite albums of all time, I wouldn’t be surprised if I started to like Fear Inoculum after a few years. At the moment, however, I find it to be quite lacking
If I were to launch only one criticism (which I won’t), it would be that I think it has a very weak start and only begins to finally pick up and be an album that grabs my attention more than halfway through. Not enough of it is really unique, interesting, or emotionally engaging in a way to grab my attention up front. There are fleeting moments where I wish the songs would go a little further, but the focus tends to be instead on some rather dull bass lines and monotonous tempos.
Tool has always been one of those bands where people have said their songs all sound the same. I’ve disagreed with this in the past, but I still understand where people are coming from with that statement. Fear Inoculum, to me, sounds like the B-side of Lateralus. Several of the songs match the tone, or rhythm, or bass line of songs on Lateralus that I would much rather listen to. One in particular, Pneuma, bores me nearly to tears with how much it reminds me of other, better songs and goes on for so long. Speaking of which…
Tool has also often been criticized for having songs that are too long. Again, I would disagree with this notion, on previous albums, because I felt like their songs were meant to take you on a journey and would often go in some interesting directions in the process. If a song was successful in this, it would make even the longest song feel much shorter than it really was. For example, Third Eye and Rosetta Stoned are songs that go on for more than 10 minutes, but I never feel like they’re a drag. With no doubt in my mind, I can say that all of Fear Inoculum’s songs are far too long. Even its most interesting songs would benefit from a few bars being cut.
While the previous albums seemed to have a lot of emotion behind their tracks, be it anger, mourning, or a desire for spiritual peace, Fear Inoculum feels rote and tired. In fact, it almost seems like the band doesn’t start to wake up until they hit the end of the fourth track, Invincible. Perhaps, there’s something more going on in the first few songs that simply isn’t connecting with me. Perhaps, if I take the time to read the lyrics and dig through the hidden meanings that are there, I’ll be able to find the elements of the songs to make up for that lack of impact Fear Inoculum has. Perhaps, as with the other albums, I’ll grow to like it a lot more with time.
At the moment, however, I find the titular first track to be a slow and weak start. The second, Pneuma, is a blatant and boring blend of Schism, The Patient, and Parabola from Lateralus. Invincible takes forever to get to the good part. Descending starts to finally do some interesting things with some good guitar solos. Culling Voices would be more menacing and melancholic if it weren’t so monotonous. Chocolate Chip Trip is a fine drum track. And 7empist is the best track on the album that does anything new and unique, but it’s also the last real song on there. All of these songs lack the Tool crescendo that has often filled me with adrenaline and love for their music.
When I listen to Fear Inoculum, the main emotion I feel is boredom. Some of the songs have their catchy, ear-worm moments, but the overall package feels like the band is as bored and tired playing the songs as I am listening to them. The rest of the world may be rejoicing for Tool’s return, but I can’t help feeling that this album is just the project they made to finally shut up those fans who have been demanding a new one for the last decade.
Favorite songs:
Descending
7empist
How Do They All Rank Up?
Lateralus
10,000 Days
Aenima
Opiate
Undertow
Salival
Fear Inoculum
Do you agree or disagree with my opinions? Which album? or songs are your favorite? Let me know in the comments
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