Counting on TOOL's "Lateralus": Prog Review #33
TOOL - Lateralus
It’s been a very long time since my last album review; How fitting when the subject is an artist notorious for the amount of time between album releases.
It's TOOL time!
TOOL was big news a couple years ago. As one of the last holdouts on releasing their music to streaming platforms, TOOL delighted fans when their entire discography was uploaded, along with a long-anticipated new album, Fear Inoculum, a month later and 13 years after their previous release, the appropriately named 10,000 Days.This was an event and the result was an exposure of how strange and useless music charts have become in the digital era, as well as a demonstration of how powerful a rabidly loyal fan base can be.
Behind the dreary, sludgy, samey sounds of a band that could be mistaken for the white noise of a grunge era also-ran lies one of the most complex and weird acts out there.
The name of the game is subtlety.
As in the case of Yes, TOOL is a band that probably requires deep understanding of music theory to fully appreciate. But where Yes announces their cerebral qualities with whirlwind sonic urgency, TOOL hides their impulses behind depressive metal and sophomoric humour. The song "Stinkfist" off the Aenima (1996) album is only the most obvious example. There’s also the band’s name.
So, you can be forgiven for not noticing a lot of the intricacies of TOOL’s songcraft and subject matter, but they are there in spades: shifting time signatures, impossible virtuosity, guitar customization, production tricks, mathematically themed lyrics, and the invention of a hoaxy pseudo-science/spiritual movement called Lachrymology. I'm not going to get into any of this, but this TOOL-themed episode of Alan Cross's Ongoing History of New Music is a great place to start.
The point is that there is far too much going on with TOOL for me to offer any kind of objectivity on what is arguably their masterpiece, Lateralus (2001). I'll go on record saying that I've enjoyed Fear Inoculum (2019) more.
Ride the Spiral
“Schism” is TOOL's most recognizable song, and it was also my entry point for the band. The song was overplayed on my local rock and alternative radio station when I was a teen. Initially, I was turned off by the song—boring, repetitive, doesn't go anywhere, overlong, too dark. But as I opened up to the song, it opened up to me as well. The subtle variations on that bloopy guitar part and the gradually developing drum work around the toms make their way into your brain. It helps that this song has uncharacteristically accessible lyrics drawing on a tired puzzle metaphor for human relationships ("between supposed lovers/brothers.")
My history with the song also describes my immersion into TOOL’s music as a whole: off-putting at first, somewhat rewarding with time.
It's that “somewhat” that's most critical here. I can get REALLY into a TOOL song here and there, but the albums are highly demanding. Further, the lyrical and musical themes are unvaryingly dark and even viscerally disgusting. On "Schism," those pieces that used to fit are now “mildewed and smoldering,” and I could draw your attention back to “Stinkfist” as well.
But when a song gets you, and when it works just right, TOOL can be glorious—I write this sentence while listening to the chorus of “Parabola”:
This body, this body holding me
Be my reminder here that I am not alone in...
This body, this body holding me
Feeling eternal, this pain is an illusion
Alive!
...
This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality
Embrace this moment, remember
We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion
Out of the filth emerges an immaculate human spirit. This is an old theme and characteristic for a band so committed to mathematics and its associated divinity within the realm of classical philosophy.
On the subject of math is the album's title track and centrepiece, “Lateralus,” a song built on the Fibonacci sequence. This plays out in the syllables of the lyrics and changes in time signatures. “Overthinking, overanalyzing separates the body from the mind” Maynard Keenan sings, and this is a danger of writing about TOOL. So let's sweep aside lyrical analyses and conclude with how the album makes me feel.
I know the pieces fit cause I watched them fall away -”Schism”
The Whole Picture
Ultimately, there are moments of joy and pleasure, as in the chorus of “Parabola” and a good chunk of “Lateralus,” “The Grudge,” and “Triad,” but there's a lot of filler in between these moments. This is probably a deliberate structure of the songs and the album as a whole, seeing as TOOL likes to space out songs with atonal and atmospheric shorter tracks. I find it hard to pick standout songs, though, since there is such a repetitive quality to TOOL's music, or rather a sort of oversaturated stew of sounds, that the songs feel interchangeable with one another too often. This makes TOOL a good background listening experience as those special moments can catch you unaware. When they do, it's powerful.
TOOL's Lateralus is undeniably deep, but only intermittently rewarding.
Rolling Stone Rankings
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King
Rush - Moving Pictures
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Yes – Close to the Edge
Genesis - Selling England by the Pound
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
Can - Future Days
Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Yes - Fragile
Rush - Hemispheres
ELP - Brain Salad Surgery
Pink Floyd - Animals
Genesis - Foxtrot
King Crimson - Red
Gentle Giant - Octopus
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells
Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All
Premiata Forneria Marconi - Per Un Amico
King Crimson - Larks’ Tongue in Aspic
Camel - Mirage
Rush - 2112
Tangerine Dream - Phaedra
Magma - Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh
The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Van Der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts
Supertramp - Crime of the Century
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Dream Theater - Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory
U.K. - U.K.
Renaissance - Ashes Are Burning
Kansas - Leftoverture
TOOL - Lateralus
ASK Rankings
Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Supertramp - Crime of the Century
Genesis - Foxtrot
Camel - Mirage
Yes – Close to the Edge
Renaissance - Ashes Are Burning
King Crimson - Red
Gentle Giant - Octopus
Dream Theater - Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory
Genesis - Selling England by the Pound
Rush - 2112
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
ELP - Brain Salad Surgery
U.K. - U.K
Rush - Moving Pictures
King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King
Kansas - Leftoverture
The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Premiata Forneria Marconi - Per Un Amico
King Crimson - Larks’ Tongue in Aspic
Pink Floyd - Animals
TOOL - Lateralus
Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All
Yes - Fragile
Rush - Hemispheres
Tangerine Dream - Phaedra
Magma - Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Can - Future Days
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells
Van Der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here