Review: Tool's Aenima

Confession time: This is the first time I’ve ever listened to a Tool album. A 20-year old progressive metal band from California, Aenima is their sophomore release, dating back to 1996. Winning a grammy for Best Metal Performance, and selling over three million copies, this is the work that began the growth of what is one of today’s most dedicated cult followings; talk to a Tool fan about Tool at your own risk, for if you are not a Tool fan yourself, you could quickly discover that you're on very thin ice...

So here we go with a progressive metal album from fifteen years ago – much closer to the source than today’s would-be proggers. In listening to the one hour, seventeen minute span of the record, though, I’m finding a balance between straight-up prog techniques, those being jumping between time signatures, keys, modes, languages, and the employment of unconventional instruments and samples, and a few songs laden with some carefully crafted sucker punches that trick the ear into thinking that some really weird shit is going on, when actually we stay in the comfortable regular-land of 4/4. I cite two examples:

Track three, H. and track five, Forty Six & 2 don’t ever, to my examination, leave 4/4 time, instead employing techniques of syncopation (Messing with the ordering of weak and strong beats to screw with your head) and hemiola (putting a pattern of beats into a 4/4 time signature that, after a few measures will create the brief illusion of 3/4or vice versa) to throw you off and make you think that there’s more going on than there really is.

Several other songs are much more straightforward in their confusing, almost seemingly arbitrary construction: two bars of 3/4, then a bar of 4/4 will repeat for a while, then a pause for a measure in 2/2, chorus in 3, bridge in 4… It all gets very difficult to follow at times. And like everything prog, we have the interlude tracks, like Cesaro Summability, which features a crying infant, indecipherable, robotic vocals, the motorcycle from Snow Crash revving in the background, and no time signature at all.

Our vocalist, Mr Maynard James Keenan, though appearing on nearly every track on the album, often mixed softer than the rest of the band. On the first few tracks this is very noticeable, and his crooning takes a pleasant backseat to the wailing and grooving of the guitars and bass, turning into a meandering, smooth hammock of sound to lie in and let the rest of the track wash over you. In some other instances, mostly the title track Aenima, Maynard is turned way the hell up, delivering a very standard, straightforward rock vocal performance, along with some well-written and humorous lyrics to boot.

Aenima is a good, solid album. I think it wanders about frequently, with songs that were very obviously written to accommodate the lengthy and frequently obtuse lyrics; like anything prog, beware the lyrics on the first listen if you don’t want to be entirely confused. Hooker With A Penis is a good example.

So if you’ve always been wondering what’s so great about those Tool guys and why all these people keep raving about them, I think a proper place to start your investigation would be 1996’s Aenima.