TOOL - C/D!?

they say the heart of rock n' roll's in your anus

If this is shit
Please let me go

xpost I thought that's where our third eye was?

squeegee your third eye. i get it now.

I am just a worthless liar
I am just an imbecile
I will only complicate you
Trust in me and fall as well

We are bound by all the rest
Like the same phone number
All the same friends
And the same address

i'd love to hear a Tool album that is a lot less /r/im55andthisisdeep/ and a lot more /r/collapse

Slightly NSFW album cover

lol

Haha.

like Zappa, who I'm sure they are big fans of

I can't stand Zappa. This might sound shallow, but the fact he has never had a psychedelic experience certainly plays out in his music, at least to my ears. His entire oeuvre just sounds so try hard and hollow. Tool is nothing like Zappa, but I see where you're coming from.

Echoing others here, new song sounds like less intense, more nicely produced Tool, and recycles a number of musical tropes both vocally and instrumentally that have been used in the past on various albums. Was hoping for something a little more original or a progression of their sound (a la Slowdive or Portishead or how 10,000 Days progressed after Lateralus) but I'm afraid it's gonna turn out to be more of a "Syro". The song is still good though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7EpUu2ROsU

I can't stand Zappa. This might sound shallow, but the fact he has never had a psychedelic experience certainly plays out in his music, at least to my ears. His entire oeuvre just sounds so try hard and hollow.

Yes, where would music be without psychedelic experiences? Why, we'd only be left with people like James Brown, Ravi Shankar, and Sun Ra, and we certainly wouldn't have all those Blue Cheer-lite private press LPs no one ever listens to twice. The horror!

Also--and not accusing you of having a knee jerk response to Zappa, who you may legitimately hate--but I have found that a lot of people who view Zappa this way tend to have a very shallow impression of his work. Not to derail here, but how much of it have you heard?

You have fallen into (or set?) the most common Zappa trap. If you don't like it, you just haven't listened to the right things, or listened to it right. And if you *do* like it, well, the joke's on you, because he's not taking it very seriously, hence all the stupid humor. It's double secret ironic. My most musically adept friend posits that Zappa knew he didn't have the chops for jazz or classical, and resented the realization that mere rock was his strong suit (whether or not you think he's good at it). Hence the cynicism and seething contempt Zappa had for everything and everybody.

You have fallen into (or set?) the most common Zappa trap. If you don't like it, you just haven't listened to the right things, or listened to it right. And if you *do* like it, well, the joke's on you, because he's not taking it very seriously, hence all the stupid humor. It's double secret ironic. My most musically adept friend posits that Zappa knew he didn't have the chops for jazz or classical, and resented the realization that mere rock was his strong suit (whether or not you think he's good at it). Hence the cynicism and seething contempt Zappa had for everything and everybody.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, August 19, 2019 12:04 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's not the trap. The trap is believing a person with the work ethic and catalog of Zappa could ever possibly be "not taking it very seriously" despite what he wants you to believe

I also won't try to claim that Zappa's jazz-y or modern classical stuff rivals either the work of Wayne Shorter or Pierre Boulez, but to say he "didn't have the chops" for either is absurd

He had chops, or could compose chops, galore. But he never could have, er, swung it as a jazz leader a la Miles or whomever. And I don't know what his reputation is among classical cats, but I can't believe they take him seriously. (Maybe some do?) My "not taking it very seriously" jibe is him applying all that intellectual rigor and work ethic to songs called "Lick My Love Pump" with goofy singing and sound effects and really, really shallow satire or whatever. But obviously he's got his fans!

lol work ethic

Yes, where would music be without psychedelic experiences? Why, we'd only be left with people like James Brown, Ravi Shankar, and Sun Ra, and we certainly wouldn't have all those Blue Cheer-lite private press LPs no one ever listens to twice. The horror!

Yeah yeah I knew this would be the blow back. I guess my point, now that I think about it more, is that Zappa always seemed like a supremely gifted virtuoso, but a profoundly lacking composer - ersatz even. I really don't feel he's done anything musically original. I've listened to a number of releases across the 60's-80's. His best song IMHO is Valley Girl and the closest thing he ever got to defining culture rather than reflecting it back in his sonic image. Joe's Garage was funny for a bit on first listen, but is incredibly disposable, which given its sprawling self indulgent execution, is kinda sad.

I'm also not much of a fan of Ravi Shankar and Sun Ra for what its worth, and listen more to James Brown's disciples than the man himself.

We're getting a bit off topic here though

True. Happy to discuss further on one of the many Zappa threads. But before we get back to Tool, I can't let this slide:

I really don't feel he's done anything musically original

What music do you know of that sounds anything like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zprYyWMcUGY

What music do you know of that sounds anything like this?

The only thing that makes that piece interesting is the instrumentation and the treatments of the sounds. The actual melodies and rhythms are super basic; any halfway decent large jazz ensemble of note stomps that shit into the ground. Especially since there's no counterpoint or melodic criss-crossing; it's a sequence of discrete musical events.

And yes, I have listened to a shit-ton of Zappa. I even saw him live on his final tour.

Maynard and Zappa share many lyrical unfunny-joke tropes, but I hear zero other similarities.

If Zappa wrote Ozzy's lyrics in a Sabbath/King Crimson supergroup they might sound like Tool.

It apparently leaked in a pretty public way on the Toolband subreddit (someone from a distributor (or Amazon?) smuggled out a copy, realized he didn't know how to rip the CD, then met with a guy in Las Vegas who ripped it for him, and now it's out in the open)

The Tool album that is (didn't realize this was now a Zappa discussion, sorry)

realized he didn't know how to rip the CD

I feel 1000 years old.

I've seen links to the leak on various MP3 blogs, but...I don't care.

I feel 1000 years old.

"What is this...'CD'?"

"I have a guy in Vegas who can rip it for you. But he doesn't come cheap."

And as for quality, it's a bit of a gamble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIwR3dN6Id0

And women across the internet breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that a sizable portion of the internet's worst men would be busy for at least 24 hours...

what the fuck, man.

sounds like a Tool album. It's fine.

"And women across the internet breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that a sizable portion of the internet's worst men would be busy for at least 24 hours..."

harhar. this would be more applicable if it was a Red Hot Chili Peppers album that leaked. The biggest Tool fans I know are women.

Xxpost Nope, it's the end of civilization

When the coolest track is the interlude, you're in trouble.

And women across the internet breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that a sizable portion of the internet's worst men would be busy for at least 24 hours...

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Sunday, August 25, 2019 12:04 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I know four rabid Tool fans and two of them are women (one is my sister in law)

But please don't let that stop you from continuing to generalize about how gender determines musical taste

Waah.

How about this? Not all Tool fans are douchey Reddit dudes, but a sizable portion of douchey Reddit dudes are Tool fans. Feel better now, neckbeard?

And women across the internet breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that a sizable portion of the internet's worst men would be busy for at least 24 hours...

Fuck off. This doesn't belong here

I find it cute that it clocks at 1h19, as though fitting the album onto a single 1h20 CD were an absolute necessity in 2019.

there's going to be three instrumental/segue/connecting bits in the digital version that will add another 10 minutes

they were going to release it as one 90 minute track at one point, apparently

Ah, never mind then.

New Tool sounds like Tool. Sometimes literally like Old Tool.

I find it cute that it clocks at 1h19, as though fitting the album onto a single 1h20 CD were an absolute necessity in 2019.

― pomenitul, Monday, August 26, 2019 3:35 AM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

it is cute

they're doing thoughtful/weirdo/3D album art again, presumably to encourage physical CD sales, but also because it's fun and why not?

if any 2019 release was gonna purposely shoot for '90s CD album length, this would be the one.

yeah and josh otm this literally just sounds like 2006 Tool but not as good. I'm only two songs in

I'm waiting to listen until I pick it up tomorrow. But do Maynard's vocals feel disconnected given he recorded them after the tracks were laid down? Mentioned the recording process to a buddy tonight & he began questioning if Maynard was an insufferable prick aka maybe the band doesn't even want him in the studio.

They feel pretty well-integrated to me. The problem, as fb said, is that it feels like a rote rehash, like a "new" Tool album composed via machine learning or something.

Yes xp