For Whomst'd've The Bell Tolls

So, if you haven't heard Tool before, they've got a lot going on. They're an American progressive metal band, and Lateralus was their third album. It was a turning point for the group, and they saw a pivot from a more straightforward metal sound to their more recognizable sound: esoteric, complex, and introspective.

Fun story about the release of this album; Tool was an outspoken opponent of file-sharing sites like Napster and Limewire, which were rampant in the early 2000s. A month before Lateralus dropped, the group announced their new album, titled Systema Encéphale, along with a number of track names like "Riverchrist" and "Encephatalis". Predictably, the file-sharing sites became flooded with these songs, except the problem was... Systema Encéphale. Then, Tool did a surprise release of the actual album, pulling a complete bait-and-switch on the pirates.

I first learned about this group by playing Guitar Hero: World Tour back in 2009. There was a Tool concert featured in the game, which at the time was a little... intense. The marathon-length songs, mind-bending meter and syncopation changes, and trippy visuals certainly were a lot for 9th grade me.

It turns out my wife is really into Tool though, so I gave them another chance a number of years later. I liked them a lot better the second time around!

The inspiration for this album album comes from a variety of sources. With the name and album art design, there's clearly influence from human anatomy, mysticism, and sacred geometry. The actual songs take inspiration from such things as: the Fibonacci sequence, Buddhist monk chanting, a paranoid phone call about aliens controlling the government, and slowed down audio of frontman Maynard James Keenan's cat.

Also: picture discs! I have a few in my collection, and man, these ones are cool. Some Trve Avdiophies™ turn their nose up at them, claiming they are more prone to warping and have more surface noise. Call me uncultured, but they sound fine to me. Fun little Easter egg, on side D you can see artist Alex Gray hid the word "GOD" in the brain matter.

The music itself is so, so cool. Each member of the group is firing on all cylinders in this album. Maynard, of course, kind of steals the show with his vocals. He imparts this almost primal energy to his songs. I also have to shout out Justin Chancellor on bass. Those riffs are so iconic. One contemporary reviewer negatively compared Tool's sound to "Black Sabbath jamming with Genesis at the bottom of a coal shaft", and like? Yeah, but in a good way? The way the sound effortlessly flows from contemplative solo guitar to fierce, intense full ensemble playing is so good. Good luck trying to dance to it, though. They're definitely a group like Dream Theater or Rush that relish in disorienting time signatures and syncopation.

My favorite song on the album is "Schism", which has one of the most iconic bass lines in all rock music. Working at a music store, it's probably between this and "Seven Nation Army" for what gets played the most by people testing basses. I'm not even going to attempt to post a vinyl rip, because 1. a song this popular will 100% get auto-flagged by Tumblr, and 2. you really owe it to yourself to watch the music video.

Tool's visuals are nothing if not consistently very, very weird. Content warning for weird body horror, if you're sensitive to that sort of thing.

The song is generally about how relationships fall apart, and the human need for connection. Maynard James Keenan says of it, "They're all about relationships. Learning how to integrate communication back into a relationship. How are we as lovers, as artists, as brothers - how are we going to reconstruct this beautiful temple that we've built and that's tumbled down? It's universal relationship stuff."

Apparently, the initial draft of the song was much more personal, and was changed last minute because guitarist Adam Jones thought it hit too close to home. It very explicitly mentioned the growing creative tension in the band, especially between Keenan and Jones, and after a lengthy discussion Keenan relented and made the lyrics more vague and universal.

The poetry that comes from The squaring off between And the circling is worth it Finding beauty in the dissonance

Indeed!