Tool aenima album11/26/2022 ![]() ![]() Tool’s awareness of the running mindfucks and contradictions is rife and intentional the nucleus of one of metal’s most significant bands sitting rather comfortably in what is arguably their greatest work.Speaking to the website, the man who made AJ Soprano famous listed his 5 favourite metal albums of all time. For many, Ænima is some kind of eye-opening magnum opus that the non-elite can’t possibly fathom. They are not meant to be taken as seriously as they often do. In the end, Tool want the listener to think for themselves. And, despite the title track teetering all over the place like a sonic twister, it's loud/quiet - quiet/loud sections play into the paradoxical world that Tool are so eager to adopt throughout this album. ‘Jimmy’ is incredible and is sure to whet the appetite of any listener willing to be seduced by grooves not unlike the work of Deftones it's no wonder Keenan teamed up with the band in 2000 to provide vocals on 'Passenger'. The band fully come together on ‘Hooker With A Penis’ Keenan’s half-smug/half-vexed lyrics spilling out over a track built on intensity. ‘Forty Six & 2’ shows off some of Maynard James Keenan’s cleanest vocals and ultimately sets the bar for Tool’s sound. It’s so easy to do in their alt-metal canon, but Ænima is still a breathtaking album with tonnes of replay value. Of course, he could have been mellowing out ready for the rest of Tool’s material to follow, where concentrated bursts of energy are well-placed but few and far between (like the choruses on ‘Parabola’ between his otherwise ethereal, dream-like singing).īut, comparing a Tool album to their other material is a little redundant at best. His calls three years prior on ‘Bottom’ feel so much hungrier, more desperate. This doesn’t affect his vocal ability at all (not that anything really could at this point), but listening out for it makes it so much more apparent. Plus, Maynard James Keenan sounds less sure of himself at points. They definitely translate impeccably well live, but take ‘H.’ a monumental build-up and yet Adam Jones’ guitar doesn’t pack anywhere near the same oomph as it did on ‘Cold And Ugly’ on Opiate. It could just be down to a typically 1990s mastering, but the choruses just don’t sound as massive as they should do. The update that came with Lateralus also rectified a production style one that certainly helped Tool’s early records in generating their ‘higher power’ shtick but remains problematic on Ænima. This was fixed, in every sense of the word, like a glitch that needed patching, by the time Lateralus came around ‘Parabol/Parabola’, ‘Reflection’ and the title track are testament to that. The former goes down as one of the greatest wastes of vinyl space in the history of music, while the latter merely falls victim to the ‘Tool song too long’ syndrome. It’s tracks like ‘Third Eye’ and ‘Eulogy’ (which are perhaps initially enjoyable and captivating) that are bloated and unnecessary, much like ‘Disgustipated’ or ‘Flood’ from their previous release. It does not stray from Tool's formula yet at the same time does not exhibit many of the greatest qualities they had already laid down the muddy, intoxicating rhythms on Undertow or the mysteriousness, excitement and sheer driving force on Opiate. Looking at Ænima as a whole is what births the paradox. Some of the standouts are truly stellar and include ‘H.’, a precursor/prototype/teaser to ‘The Patient’ which would follow five years later, ‘Hooker With A Penis’, complete in all its masculinity politics and vulgar scene-setting and ‘Stinkfist’, one of Tool’s most recognisable and electrifying tracks fuelled by an unstoppable opening riff. Of course, the latter still plays a significant part in Tool’s defensive fanbase today, but the fact of the matter is that at its core, Ænima simply houses some fantastic tracks, as well as some that go on for far too long. ![]() It really wasn’t until 2001 with Lateralus that Tool could make a song longer than 7 minutes without the boredom of run-of-the-mill prog and the pretentiousness of a man who is convinced the pineal gland is the answer to the universe. They had not perfected their craft, but this album is a milestone in Tool’s constant evolution and paradoxically, the band find themselves here at both their most ambitious and most stagnant. 8.7/10 Ænima shows snippets of what Tool were already capable of by 1996 and of what they would later become. ![]()
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