Tool is a band I was exposed to by a real psycho at our local theater. On the other hand, he was a real cool psycho. Honestly one of the coolest guys I know. I worked there on plays and sets and such over the summer, and he was a huge fan of Tool, so guess what was blasted through the auditorium’s speakers every day? Yep. Tool.
At that time, I never listened to it much (even when it was being forced in my ears), and the only track that stood out to me was Intermission, and I’ll get to that later. Then, once Lateralus came out, I decided to pick it up. Needless to say, it kicked ass, and I loved that album for months. Now I found myself needing a new Tool fix. The only two products in my town that I could buy was Ænima or the Salival DVD, and since I’m one of the five people in the U.S. who still doesn’t have a DVD player, I bought Ænima.
Two words: Blown away.
Ænima in every way surpasses anything I’ve ever heard from Tool before. Hell, Ænima surpasses almost any kind of music I’ve ever heard before. There was no way I could’ve been prepared for Ænima, and now I’m feeling what now veteran Tool fans have been feeling for years.
So what makes this CD so good? First off is the incredible talent each member of the band possesses.
Danny Carey is a fantastic drummer who can hold a beat or pattern no matter what else is going on (the off-ness of the drums, guitar, and bass in Lateralus’ Schism shows that). Also, I believe he was voted as the best drummer in rock at some point. I think it was in ’99, but I can’t be 100% sure.
Adam Jones guitar riffs and licks stand out regardless of how many times you may have heard them. If you hear a Tool song, you can tell as soon as the guitar comes in. Subtle ambience in tracks like 46 &2, or hard hitting chords such as those later on in the song or in songs like the title track Ænima, Jone’s style can easily be picked up. Plus, he plays like a God.
TOOL bassist Paul D’Amour was still in the band for four of the band’s songs (Pushít, Stinkfist, Eulogy, and Ænema), but after taking his leave, Justin Chancellor stepped in with thick bass licks hum into your brain in a way I’ve never heard. He almost plays the bass as if it’s not a backing instrument, but like it’s meant to overpower the guitar. In that respect, the guitar and bass meld and mix at times, making it almost impossible to tell between them. At other times, the bass backs up the drum beat or stands alone, or reinforces the lyrical verses with songs like Hooker With A Penis (the subject matter is not what you’d think). Whether or not Chancellor is a better bass player than D’Amour is something that could be argued with. Even though 4 of Ænema’s best songs weren’t done with Chancellor, this doesn’t mean he isn’t an awesome bassist. There’s plenty of other songs that Chancellor is great in and makes a mark all his own. This little fact should have no effect on his reputation. Chancellor’s fantastic bass holds Tool’s music together, and it does a damn good job, too.
And of course, Maynard James Keenan holds everything together with his powerful yet whimsical https://lyrics. The subject of his songs range from four-play (Stinkfist), a fan telling him he’s sold out (Hooker With A Penis) and his powerful response, a super human being with another set of chromosomes (46 & 2), to the end of the world and how he wishes it would come sooner (Ænima). Rock isn’t a hard genre to write lyrics for; words are easy to twist, shorten, or lengthen to ryhme, and many times, they won’t even do that. This is the case with Tool as well. At first listen, Maynard’s lyrics flow right over your head, acting like another instrument and giving you the feeling you aren’t listen to just a band.
Listening to take apart the lyrics usually won’t do much. You’ll have to go to the website to get the lyrics, and when you do, you realize how much Maynard puts into these, considering how easily they go in one ear and out the other.
Each person is amazingly good at what they do. The lyrics are fantastic, smartly written, and flow together; and Maynard’s wide voice range means anything is possible for Tool. No one instrument or person stands out. They all reinforce each other, making incredible music and stirring feelings inside of you.
The songs range from hard rock to a calmer, softer type of music that wouldn’t even be called rock. For the most part though, hard core rockers will get their fix with Ænima. Even the calmer parts of this CD are fantastic, because they are still being played by the band, which means there’s a strange Tool-ness to them. However, the calmness is usually just setting you up for something amazingly harder, and since you’ve been put in that calm mood, they hit you a lot harder than normally.
Which brings me to my next point: it’s not just the music that makes this CD so great. There are strange samplings, white noise, or anything else in between most of the tracks, giving you a sort of breather before the next song. Some are bizzare as all hell: one track is a baby crying, another is a Mafia-esque man telling someone how he’s going to die from cancer, that someone in his family will die soon, and repeatedly (and calmly) tells the man ’’F*ck you.’’ Normally, this would be a tense moment, but the seagulls and water rushing in the background give it an eerie calmness. One track features a strange beat with a man screaming in German and people cheering and applauding. The whole thing sounds like some weird Nazi pep-rally, but if you know German or do some searching on the internet, the voice is merely giving instructions on baking a cake. Another is just a circus-like ’’Intermission’’ that uses the next tracks’ guitar riff as it’s keyboard lead. Weird? Sure. But these tracks put you in the right mood that makes the next song that much more enjoyable. If there’s a song that you would want to listen to when you’re in a bad mood, the track before that puts you in a sort of lower mood, and then the song is that much better.
It’s a great idea that a local band did for a concert. It was weird, unorthadox, and cool as balls. People who saw the preview show without the intermissionals said they enjoyed the show a lot more with them, and I’m sure it’s the same way with this CD. With other CDs, you’ll skip to your favorite track, but this album is infinitely more enjoyable to just listen to straight through, because the order and intermissionals reinforce everything to make this CD one hell of a experience.
There’s a lot of symbolism, hidden messages, and hidden meanings in Ænema, too. Most of it casual listeners won’t pick up (the majority of it was told to me by the more ’hardcore’ fans), but even when it hit me, it made sense. If Tool’s music, lyrics, or intermissionals are allueding to something, you can tell in a way, and you get the message subconciously, considering it’s not put in front of your face with big neon arrows pointing to it.
I could dissect each song with two paragraphs apiece, make this review a whole lot longer, and gain a couple rubber stamped VH’s, but I’d much rather leave you with this, because if I haven’t convinced you how amazing this album is, then there’s no hope for you. Buy Ænema. It’s almost impossible to go wrong.