Lateralus

Few bands have a collegiality that matches that of Tool. With the exception of drummer Danny Carey, this is not a band of virtuoso musicians. What separates them from the rest is their united, progressive artistic vision and originality. Danny Carey's drumming is octopus-like, modulating every passage with rhythms I can't begin to understand. Put together with rest of the crew, the opaque instrumentation creates music of endless shades and layers, with time signature changes a supercomputer couldn't crack. There is magic here. Powerful, crunching riffs are foiled often by placid, narcotic passages, generating an album that only rarely "rocks." Instead, it's heavily cerebral, dark, beautiful...and ultimately indefinable. For a band that's selling millions of albums and getting mainstream recognition, they still carry an uncompromising progressive aesthetic.

Ignore those who make the asinine comment that "Tool sold out." All other factors being equal, this is Tool's _least_ commercially viable album. Frankly, I think it's fairly remarkable that they passed off a 7-minute music video ("Schism") onto MTV. (Credit the amusingly surreal video, I guess.) I guess when a band like this becomes popular, the so-called fans dismiss quality for the sake of remaining "hardcore." With lots of 8-minute songs, numerous melody shifts, texturally complex movements, world influences, enigmatic lyrics, this is not an album that can be easily digested. Aenima was complex in its own right, but is was nothing like _this_. I've had Lateralus for almost a year (at the time of this writing), and it remains as arresting as ever. It's so deep, I'm not sure I'll ever see the bottom; it's so high, I might never reach it. (Yes, I like that book.)

And yet in telling you all of this, I've told you nothing. I think the best music is the hardest to describe. Lateralus comfortably lands in that category.

We often hear, in a denigrating tone, "Yeah, that Lateralus is so self-indulgent." Quite. Tool made the album they wanted to make, with commercial considerations thrown out the window. Of course it's self-indulgent -- this isn't commercial pabulum. Clearly, Tool's objective wasn't to make _you_ happy, it was to make _themselves_ happy. This is what separates art from products.

Tool, strangely, managed to produce high art that remains a viable product. We expect mainstream rock to be dominated by bands like Creed, Nickelback, and Staind...not Tool. None of this matters, though. Whether it sells 10 million copies or 10 thousand, great music is great music. We don't need Rolling Stone or MTV to tell us that.

On _Lateralus_, the boys seem less angry this time around, perhaps, arriving at a "spiritual" place the band were probably slowly heading toward to begin with. They still maintain the aggressive intensity found on their previous albums (as well as that distinct hypnotic, mysterious aura they always possessed), but, this time around, there seems to be a feeling of hope and salvation that most Tool fans probably thought could never have been achieved.

To say the album is deep, complex and mysterious would be GROSS understatements. Conceptually, the band seems to be exploring Qaballah (or Kaballah, whichever choice of spelling is accurate) transcripts. If you've intently explored such areas as Qaballah, astrology, numerology, mythology and other such metaphysical/new age subjects, you may just have yourself an interesting, challenging and/or fun time exploring this album, as it's soaked in equivocal references to each of these. You can find references to Saturn (god of depression, fears, sorrow, misfortunes, discipline, lessons learned through hard times), Mars (god of violence, strife, conflict, war), Mercury (god of communication, thought, travel), Pluto (god of transformation, regeneration and rebirth) and other mythological figures.

There's not much time or space for me to delve into every single detail, but, hopefully, this will help. Now, I'll discuss the significance of the song "The Grudge" and it's connection with the mythological figure, Saturn. There are references to the number "1" scattered throughout the song. Depending on where you look, number "1" can be a reference to the Sun (the god of life, power and vitality), or to Saturn. But on here, it's obvious that the reference is for Saturn. 1 and 10 represent the same figure: 1, 10, 19, 28 all equal "1" ("10": 1+0=1. "19": 1+9=10=1. "28": 2+8=10=1). In this case, I'm referring to the lyrical references of the song, "The Grudge." Singer Maynard James Keenan says lines like "Saturn ascends/choose 1 or 10"/Saturn ascends/comes around again." In the latter line, Maynard may be referring to an astrological term called "Saturn Return." This is where the planet Saturn takes approximately 29 years to plow through the 12 astrological signs of the zodiacal belt (Note: the planets and astrological signs are supposed to have, more or less, considerable influence on human beings and events on planet earth.) When this happens, everyone supposedly will go through a difficult time in their lives (particularly every 29 years.) And when this happens, we are supposed to learn and grow from this - as Saturn's influence indicates.

And perhaps, this is what Maynard & the rest of Tool have done: Grown, evolved, and learned through the tough times they've been through. Now, remember, this is only the significance of one track, as more of these lyrical/metaphysical correlations can be found scattered throughout the disc, but, the theme of evolution is a constant-running theme for the album.

Musically speaking - polyrhythms, alternating time signatures, odd chord/note progressions can be found all over the place. The band seems more refined in their execution of the performances - playing with as much intensity as before, but not sounding as muddy or gritty as previous efforts. Maynard's vocals sound haunting, mysterious and powerful as ever, but, this time (as I've said), he sounds like he's in a state of salvation, as opposed to the agonized vocals found on previous efforts. But, he does let out some powerful screams as well, so watch out! Drummer Danny Carey is playing tasteful, complex rhythms, without sacrificing his more explosive pounding behind the drum kit, and the understated works of Justin Chancellor (bass) and Adam Jones (guitar) contribute to intensify the ever-present dark, hypnotic and mysterious aura of Tool's music.

At 79 minutes, this is a lengthy album, but one that's so mysterious, entrancing and intriguing, you won't even notice that the album was long to begin with. If you want to see the more evolved side of Tool, and/or want some challenging music with some seemingly transmorgifying subject matter, pick this up. And remember, to say this album is deep is a GROSS understatement.