TOOL - C/D!?

photo of Mackie (art director for this album) by Buzz (who also had a hand in introducing Joe Barresi to Tool) : https://www.instagram.com/p/B1z9iruHWVn/

I really love the record and feel that "7empest" might be the quintessential Tool song.

this album is pretty tight

“pneuma” initially feels recycled and then unfolds really wonderfully. synth solo section + the actual guitar solo at the end are both pretty sick

best interludes of any tool album for sure

whole thing kinda feels like 10,000 days but even more sedated and meditative and minus all the goofy shit

Listening to the Trap set episode with Carey, I thought he'd be a little more erudite, he sounds like some 70s burnout guy, with endless repetition of 'maaaan', 'dude' and 'fuckin...' was jarring to listen to.

pneuma has a really sick syncopated something going on

this is the random access memories of stoner rock

this is sold out everywhere, hoping i'll be able to snag a copy at some point

After a couple listens I don’t feel like any of these songs are staying with me. I don’t dislike anything I’ve heard - but I couldn’t tell you how any of them goes after the fact.

^ sums up most Tool for me

The vocal melodies & lyrics are more forgettable than their previous albums. Most of the songs would have been improved a lot if Maynard shot for some hookiness (also known as Radiohead syndrome). A few of these have really memorable guitar hooks tho, especially 7empest.

Quite like the album, but there are some things that stand out:

it feels less concept-driven than previously albums on first two listens, but I can't tell if it's because I'm missing something or if it's just not there. I'm trying to meet the album where it is, and I think that means losing myself to the journey from song to song, rather than waiting for moments that are explicitly emotionally arresting.

Danny is unbelievable, feels somewhat like he's carrying the team.

a buddy pointed out to me that Maynarde is just absent at a lot of the climax moments on the album, which has been a mainstay of Tool--and that struck me as a thoughtful point I hadn't realized just listening to the album.

All in all, I don't think it's the greatest album I've ever heard, but it's new Tool that sounds like Tool and that's enough for me.

It's fine and about exactly what I was expecting once I knew the song lengths. It plays better with the interludes but it still lacks those releases and crescendoes they do so well. Maynard never screams, there are some (painful) eye-roll-inducing lyrics (wish MJK's sense of humor was still kicking around), and the whole thing isn't particularly catchy. I'll be shocked if this isn't their final album. As others have said, Danny's drumming is unreal, which it always has been, but "Chocolate Chip Trip" blows away every Dead "Drums" track I've ever heard...in under five minutes, at that.

It is the best packaged CD I've ever seen. Well worth $45.

“7empest” is the best tool song goddamn

I feel like I'm missing out on so much by not knowing music theory :-/

12/8 & 5/4 guitar over 11/8 rhythm section in Fear Inoculum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybgz0QvaE5k

7/16 & 7/3 drum rhythm in Invincible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLvxWix_Pzw

for me what sets tool apart from other prog metal acts i've heard (and makes them actually listenable) is that they are able to coax out visceral and enjoyable grooves out of complex meters and polyrhythms that feel natural and not forced. compare that with a group like 'animals as leaders' whose work seems to be just exercises in stringing together complex patterns to be appreciated at an intellectual level

Very tribal/drum circle metal.

xpost: well put - I didn't get that invincible thing at all until 7:14 when he played it over the music, then it suddenly worked

It's 3/16 :) (the point is combining 3 x 7/16 with 7 x 3/16, which in both cases ends up as 21/16)

Reviewed it:

https://t.co/rhiwrEeHnu

The guitar has always been the least interesting part of Tool

I still haven't finished this. Hurricane stress has me playing all death metal

I have liked what i have heard tho

love this record I decided.

same

It's definitely growing on me. It helps to focus on the drumming. I think on first listen I was just hearing a lot of flat empty space where it seemed like they were avoiding songcraft. Probably why 7empest stood out first.

Every few years I’ll catch Sober somewhere and I’m surprised by how much I still like it. Special kind of eeriness that sticks out in that early 90s rock landscape. Won’t rep for Maynard as a person or a lyricist but “Waiting like a stalking butler/Who upon the finger rests” is forever buried in my brain. Great haunted house of a song.

The more prog they got the less I cared.

"Eulogy" is my all time fav

Yeah that was a fav from AEnima too at the time. I really loved these guys in high school (up to the Lateralus era, which I half dug) so can’t fully get on the lol-TOOL train.

Can’t make it through a whole album anymore, but still have some appreciation for the pre-Lateralus jams. Debuting your big deal followup album with a single about fisting buttholes was pretty good imo.

I liked your review, Whiney.

if there's one album I'd completely trust Whiney to review well it's this lol

ha, thanks guys!

I dreaded listening to this (the length, the austerity, the lyrics, Toolbros, etc) but...I like it? Adding some dynamics and simmer to odd-time meditations is a good move. And it sounds really good.

Listening to the Trap set episode with Carey, I thought he'd be a little more erudite, he sounds like some 70s burnout guy, with endless repetition of 'maaaan', 'dude' and 'fuckin...' was jarring to listen to.

Oh same for sure, I imagined him being more of a pseudo-intellectual stoner type.

Put this on again yesterday, still think it's mostly just OK. "7empest" is cool but sounds like something that would have been toward the start of past Tool albums rather than its conclusion. And too many of their songs end the same way, with some minimal morse-code guitar riff while Carey does a bunch of killer fills. Though I kind of like that about them.

morse code uses a single tone and seems like a bad description. i don't recall any marquee moon solos in this thing.

Morse code riffs then. Chug. Chug chug. Chug. Chug Chug Chug. Chug.

i agree that the single tone of a morse code and the multiple tones of these riffs are excited according to the timing of a rhythm

I know what you mean. I just think all riffs are as much morse code as these riffs.

and you are being unfair to these poor riffs, which are good

lol I got back to my headphones and you are correct, Josh. They do that multiple times with the same tone at the end of songs.

it is just Invincible and Descending, though.

the one chord chug always sounds cool

I love the minimalist one chord chugs, actually. And the Carey fills. It just underscores how for all the tightness of the arrangements and chops and stuff their compositions are often in the end just variations on time signature subdivisions. Which is cool, too!

the one chord chug always sounds cool

― american bradass (BradNelson), Wednesday, September 4, 2019 10:46 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm
the post-helmet database of 90s alt-rock bands copping staccato/modal/minimal riffs

god this record is just so good. great review whiney

yeah good review. i love all the six actual songs on here pretty much equally at this point.

I enjoyed listening to it again at dinner, and it says ... something that my family did not tell me to turn it off! Also, I listened to it on a mono bluetooth speaker, which did some awesome things to the mix, most notably making it sound (even more) like one big drum solo, which was kind of cool.

the way adam jones plays the same riff for three minutes straight on 'invincible' while the song changes dramatically around him is something else

i had no idea how much Maynard looks like the guy who played Dean Pelton of Community

Taylor Swift stans learning who Tool are because they're currently selling more copies than "Lover" is really something special pic.twitter.com/k398YRDzvZ

— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) September 4, 2019