Publication: Q Magazine
Date: August, 2001
Transcribed by
Dominic Martin (sdrawkcab8@hotmail.com)
Dominic Martin (sdrawkcab8@hotmail.com)
page: title: Tool:Lateralus Review author: Dan Silver Fred Durst's favourite band put more distance between themselves and their peers with complex fourth album. Tool are as close as heavy metal gets to a genuine enigma.The quartet's almost avant garde approach is lightyears removed from that genre's skewed idea of commercialism, and yet their records sell by the million.Similary, publicity-shy frontman Maynard James Keenan has achieved iconic status among headbangers despite a tendency to perform live wearing a bustier and accessorised, arse-length wig.It's no suprise then that Lateralus, the band's first album for five years, requires multiple listens just to even scratch it's matt-black surface.The churning riffs at the heart of hulking epics Parabola and Ticks & Leeches provide initial entry points, but ultimately it's Tool's experimental, borderline progressive, edge that proves most rewarding.Inventive and intense, songs like The Grudge and Schism are painstakingly - and patiently - constructed from countless layers and textures, the overall effect akin to translating latter-day Radiohead into Metallica's leaden lexicon.Extraordinary in every sense. 4/5 Stars
Posted to t.d.n: 09/06/02 14:30:01