Tool took three and a half years to follow up their platinum-selling debut
album, Undertow.  Maybe it just took that long for the band's members to
allow enough negative energy and anger to build up inside, because few bands
channel their dissolute emotional rage into powerful music as well Tool has
on Aenima.
     This is some serious shit, especially when you decode Maynard James
Keenan's pained, compelling vocals, which sometimes drone in a whining
midrange, but always sound as if he's reached the breaking point.
 Reinforcing his emotional catharses are the tightly wound, deep in the
hardcore pocket vamps and body slams of guitarist Adam Jones, drummer Danny
Carey, and new bassist Justin Chancellor.
    But the music on Aenima isn't mere thrash-and -burn.  Combining elements
fo Rush, Helmet, the Rollins Band and Prong, Tool covers a massive amoung of
sonic territoy, letting the muxic of long tracks like "Pushit" and "Eulogy"
ebb and flow behind Keenan.  Shorter cuts, including a venomous answering
machine message, an organ break aptly titles "intermission" and what sounds
like industrial Nazi rock on "Die Eier Von Satan," allow band and listener
alike to recharge before the next power outrage comes down.  Jones' guitar
carves out immense riffs, but also geverates reserved sections of industrial
magic, pausing for a cause that is further inflamed when his riffs return.
 Noise, feedback, and electronic treatments are as important to the album's
sound as the band's hypnotic power grooves and Keenan's traumatized sermans.
 Take this 77-minute Aenima as powerful therapy for the ears and the soul and
you'll either be cleansed or ready to kill- Buzz Morison