All this fate is an illusion

Tonight, I did something remarkably high-school-eque: I turned off the lights, put the new Tool disc in, plugged in my headphones, turned the volume up loud, and just absorbed. Something I admittedly haven’t done since Aenima came out my senior year.

What I noticed while in that private world was interesting to me. For the first 5 songs, every single riff or chorus or bridge or verse is in odd meters. Just about without fail. (For those of you confused, 4/4 is the most-used, mass-music making meter that most pop is written in… very digestable, instantly hook-grabbing.. odd meters, 5/4, 9/8, 3/4, are more traditionally used in classical music and jazz). So anyway. The first 5 songs are exceptionally composed and breathtakingly complex and tense. Lots of emotion and anger, with the time signature often acting as a separate instrument almost, guiding everything and keeping the tension high. Song 6 (Parabol) is intricate, slow, quiet and extremely delicate. Maynard does an extraordinary job of luring you in, and surprisingly enough, you can tell what he’s saying (wouldn’t you know, the first album with online-published lyrics before its release, and you can tell what he’s saying). Then it melds seamlessly with #7 (Parabola) in a perfect, radio-friendly 4/4 time. Which surprised me, until I realized that this serves to break the tension that you don’t realize has been building up for 25 minutes (or longer) now. With a cool Soundgarden-esque sound (who were quite fond of odd time signatures themselves), it’s the first song that just totally rocks-the-fuck-out. Schism, the first single, rocks as well as the other songs contained in the first 5, but Parabola just kicks fucking shit. Which is why I’m a little surprised that Parabola wasn’t chosen as the first release. After that, most of the songs have a refreshingly Opiate-ish energy, while skillfully maintaining a clean break from strict palm-muted and oppressive Undertow-style emotion. But, to be sure, this album is cohesive, wonderful, and without a song to ignore, as most great albums tend to be (The Cure’s Disintegration comes to mind). With Aenima, we saw some fuckings-around (Message to Harry Manback, Die Eier Von Satan) that quite honestly, the album could have been better without. I understand Tool’s sense of humor (‘I had a friend once… who pissed on my lighter…’), but honestly, ‘the eggs of satan?’ Lateralus has no such trappings, minus a strange hidden track, but at least we’ve come to expect an ecelectic hidden track by now, haven’t we?

Just thought I’d share.

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