Publication: Music.com premiere issue
Date: April, 2001
Transcribed by
Casey Miller (millercc@slu.edu)
Casey Miller (millercc@slu.edu)
page: 58 title: Darkness on the edge of an industrial town author: Rickey Wright Tool's blend of dark metal and alternative/industrial sensibilities has kept fans both outside and inside the industry talking during its long absence from the new-release racks. Feeding the eagerness for new Tool material is singer Maynard James Keenan's recent success with side project A Perfect Circle - the band's Mer de Noms went platinum last fall - and the group's reluctance to release much information about its forthcoming album before its release. That such grinding, even forbiding sounds as Tool's Aenima should find a mass audience may well say something about the willingness of a certain audience to be challenged. That even a stopgap project like Salival, which packaged a live CD with a collection of the band's videos, was well received speaks to their fans' rabidness. Like many threatening bands before them, though, Tool allows glimpses of a sense of admittedly black humor. Those videos are among the most disturbing ever made (for those who find such things disturbing). MTV refused to even acknowledge the title of one of them, "Stinkfist." At the same time, their creepy post-Cronenberg beings and settings must entertain these smart musicians. Maynard guffawing? It's not out of the question. He thought well enough of the late bellicose comedian Bill Hicks to include a sample of his voice on Aenima. Unlike, say, Korn's, Tool's music and presentation allow an interpretation broad enough to take in anger, rage, and grim laughter. So will the mysterious third Tool studio opus connect with the faithful? No doubt. It might, like Radiohead's Kid A, sell most quickly out of the box, then fade fast from the charts - but most of those who get it will surely 'get it'(italics). If nothing else, the album will bear the burden of perhaps being the last new thing Tool issues for another five years: That in itself will make the record feel special. But what will make it really count is how it surprises, how it fits into the lives of everyone from the outcast kids to guitar-shop-haunting techies, and whether or not the media decides to pronounce its name out loud.
Posted to t.d.n: 04/25/01 09:14:21