Stoopid

I only know the second album, a pitcher of iced tea in the miserable heat of this life. First, I’ll listen to it again and then I’ll move on to this, I swear.

Ugly and redundant review. Rating for the album 4.5. Masterpieces: Bottom, Flood, Sober, Undertow. The second best Tool after Aenima. Artwork that is hard to forget, unlike the tackiness of the last two albums. Tool certainly did not change the history of rock, but at their peak, they managed to create one of the best sounds of recent rock decades, without a doubt. For example, no one has ever done something like the first 3 minutes of Flood, neither before nor after.

Rejuvenating, I agree.

I'm not saying that Opiate and Undertow are the best; I'm saying: 1) Aenima 2) Undertow 3) Lateralus 4) 10,000 Days, with Opiate in a separate category. But music is also about tastes and times, meaning that what for me was a betrayal was for others a pleasant discovery, and that's fine. However, what seems objectively shareable is that the post-APC Maynard is a bit of a more effeminate version, as if he has changed drugs... In short, a subdued Keenan, in his preference for form (the spiral, numbers, geometry). On the other hand, I will be unpopular again, but what are APC if not pure and sappy form? From that point on, it feels like I lost him, the free-spirited Mohican Maynard, the one who screamed "Flooooooooood" at the end of Danny Carey's frenzy. Anyway, talking about it this much has made me want to listen to Lateralus again... my favorite moment is the "sinking deeper" during The Grudge.

I withdraw my 3 from the review I just read, better to say (this morning I woke up feeling off ;-). The fact that the Tool tower over Apocalyptica and Malmsteen says a lot about your idea of musical complexity equating to quality. I, on the other hand, believe that Neil Young is a thousand times better than Satriani, and that the value of music lies in the depth it evokes, not in an overall, complex complexity.

I withdraw my 3 from the review I just read, better to say (this morning I woke up feeling off ;-). The fact that the Tool tower over Apocalyptica and Malmsteen says a lot about your idea of musical complexity equating to quality. I, on the other hand, believe that Neil Young is a thousand times better than Satriani, and that the value of music lies in the depth it evokes, not in an overall, complex complexity.

I gladly lost myself in Tool's 10,000 Days, damn! I loved the early Tool so much (note that I'm also talking about Opiate here, which hasn't been mentioned yet) that the anthem to onanism in the latest album seemed frankly ridiculous to me. Going back to Lateralus, what can I say, I don’t know, the references to spirals, Fibonacci, the mathematical laws that govern life (but what could they be?) don’t really convince me in their substance. In Aenema, Maynard buries all of L.A. under an avalanche of whispered "fuck"s. At the same time, he invokes a comet to separate California from the mainland: "Learn to swim, see u down in Arizona Bay..." This is lateral thinking, damn it!

It’s a baroque album, certainly lavish at times (the grudge, the title track), dispensable at others (the patient, the instrumental pieces). Aenima was noise rock unleashed, refined and cutting, at times sublime, a masterpiece. One step below is Undertow, dark and visceral. Lateralus is a bit wrapped up in itself, and all in all, it hardly ever opens up. Write, at the end of a good review: "overall an extraordinarily complex work." Well, it seems to me that this phrase encapsulates the essence of the work, and it doesn’t necessarily sound like a reason for praise, if you see what I mean. In short, within that intricate complexity lies a bit of mannerism. To confirm all of this, Lateralus will be followed by 10000 days, an album that I find unnecessary and unbearable.

It’s a baroque album, certainly lavish at times (the grudge, the title track), dispensable at others (the patient, the instrumental pieces). Aenima was noise rock unleashed, refined and cutting, at times sublime, a masterpiece. One step below is Undertow, dark and visceral. Lateralus is a bit wrapped up in itself, and all in all, it hardly ever opens up. Write, at the end of a good review: "overall an extraordinarily complex work." Well, it seems to me that this phrase encapsulates the essence of the work, and it doesn’t necessarily sound like a reason for praise, if you see what I mean. In short, within that intricate complexity lies a bit of mannerism. To confirm all of this, Lateralus will be followed by 10000 days, an album that I find unnecessary and unbearable.

Thank you for your kindness, Bartle. Like all of Bunuel's work, this film lends itself to so many interpretations that it might discourage a casual reviewer. So, on a whim, I wrote down a couple of feelings; otherwise, I wouldn’t have sent anything... here’s to redundancy!