Author: alternateorg

There’s a new Alternateling on the block today. Her name is Anika Michelle, born at 12:28 PM, May 19, at 8 pounds, 15 ounces. She says hi. Or more acurately, something closer to ‘gurgle.’ 🙂

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.

I recently just checked the newest poll results, and was surprised to find that (of the people that voted) 31% of the people who read this site are outside the US, something I would never have guessed (call it American ignorance). If you’re an international reader, please drop me a line or add a comment to this post and let me know where you are. I’m really interested in this.

I’d also like to take this time to issue an apology to readers in the South, an area of the US I totally forgot to put into the survey. I don’t think any less of you (not that you care), but I’ve been to the South, and let’s be honest, it ain’t Silicon Valley.

Read here about the E3 Expo opening today in Los Angeles. And, if all goes well, you’ll be getting a firsthand account of it via scott. He’s ‘on assignment.’

This is quite interesting, it seems someone has written a new version of an old(er) Linux worm (virus) called 1i0n. This is nothing new in the haXor world if it weren’t for the fact that it actually closes the door behind it and appears to fix that known hole… very cool, now if the OS vendors would only “package” security updates this way.

Eazel, maker of the intersting-but-not-that-cool GNOME add-on Nautilus has closed its doors for good, due to a lack of funding. Hrm. Kinda sucks, you hate to see something new and relatively interesting get beat down so hard like that. But isn’t that the point of Linux? Won’t the community try and build it on their own, provided that Eazel opens up the code?

While discussing a new project with a friend of mine, I decided I needed to walk downtown and get the new Tool album. If you’re a fan, I strongly recommend it, if you don’t mind shuddering and shivering in 9/8.