Since I began listening to Slipknot just a few years ago, I was overwhelmed by the unbelievable skill of drummer Joey Jordisson. JJ was head and shoulders above his many peers in the genre and in the industry as a whole...or so I thought. But inevitably, in every discussion about great percussion I'd hear someone raving about Danny Carrie. Who? I needed to educate myself. You may be thinking, "how can he write about music if he's this ignorant?" And I say, "hey, I'm admitting it, ok?" But seriously, I put off Tool off for the next few years, until I met a few serious fans from the band's early days in work. They raved. They groveled. They praised. I listened. I had to check this out, so I figured "what the hell, I'll buy an album." I perused the shelf of a random CD store for an album, and fished out 'Aenima'. All set, I figured, and purchased it. Popped it in, threw on the 'phones, here we go. About 40 or so minutes later, I was hooked. This--thing, this album, whatever you want to call it---I didn't get it. But I wanted to, badly. So it sat in my player for the next month, and when the smoke cleared, I was a fan. The album was, track for track, a traveling sideshow I couldn't help but join.
I was, throughout, enchanted and awed by Carrie's skill, but I found my ears drawn to another illustrious figure. The ringleader of this show, the chaotic mastermind at the helm, had hypnotized me verse by verse, and the resulting stupor left me with one name on mind and on my tongue: Maynard James Keenan. Keenan is the perfect conductor for Tool's instrumental antics, and his demented harmonies bring constant attention to the many emotional tirades and prophetic slanders of his lyrical weaponry. I went in as a fearless listener; I emerged gripped with a confused fear that wrenched my stomach and forced me to remedy the pain with further listening. When I finally discerned the beauty within the musical beast, I found myself in a one-sided conversation with a smirking satan, an angry hispanic, and an atheist with a simple purpose: to propose another way of looking at it all. I was overwhelmed.
Okay, so I admit that last bit was pretty general, but here's the bottom line. The album runs kind of disjointedly, consistently throwing the listener off with random interludes that conclude rather pointlessly. One could argue that they contribute to the overall pandemonium that is the album, but that would be a mere cop-out that even Keenan would take offense to. Confronting the disjointedness seems far more appropriate; for this is in many ways reveals the essence of the songs themselves. Stink Fist, H, Useful Idiot, 46 and 2--these songs cast Keenan as and embattled soul, perfect in the ways of the struggle. His beltings are often desperate cries--they plead, but not so long as to fool; for they add necessary insult to the emotional injury of Maynard's lyrics. 'Insult" is here used as a word of praise. Technically, Keenan's voice is earth-shattering--his vocals complete the symbiotic 'vocal/lyrical' relationship necessitated by the songs as a whole. This connection must be made for the final product--especially products of this nature--to sell, and it's obvious that Keenan is well aware.
Not at all saying that Tool is a sellout act; far from it, really. But Maynard understands, contrasting the apparent front of his metal peers, that it takes selling one's soul to really make a record and to promote it's release. Hooker With a Penis. No further explanation needed. This track explains the reality of the business, and in no uncertain terms: "I sold out long before you'd ever even heard my name/I sold my soul to make a record/dipsh*t and then you bought one"
The interludes: Most noteworthy, for me, is "Die Eier von Satan," which is recorded with an enthusiastic audience granting accolades to what sounds to be a genocide plot--if you don't happen to speak German. The recipe, which is what the track really is, is yet another exhibition of the band's 'produced while drugged' creative nature. Otherwise, the random stoppages for character speeches like "Message to Harry Manback" are perplexing and ultimately irritating, but with the preceding and following ballads it's simple to embrace in stride.
Quickly: "Eulogy" is not for the faint of heart. Well, those who only listen to it once will most likely take no certain offense. But the track, an expression of Keenan's denial of the frequently hailed secular as well as privately religious savior, Jesus Christ, is an absolute shocker. But if you've dared to ingest this product on a closed mind, you may as well be blaming no one but yourself.
So, not only do you have a gripping percussionist at the rear; a bassist, by the way, who plays out the role of absolutely unsung hero through every track; and a wild-eyed genius with a lyrical and vocal agenda as aggressive as a heart attack---you have, in the wake of this juncture, a true-to-the-purpose collaboration whose album reeks of unique talent and lasting cultural success. By cultural, I mean to say that this is one of only a select community of bands who are truly able to fetch a focused and specific demographic, and if you feel that you belong to this group, I say jump. Dive in. But be forewarned: learn to swim first.
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