Tool
10000 Days

THE REVIEW

Difficult review, also because it's the third one, in this dirty world where everything is obtained instantly, and albums are found before their release. I adapt, skip the metabolization phase, convinced, having grown up on a diet of bread and Tool (often just Tool), that I can already speak about it now, and, above all, add something. Ah, human vanity...

Let's put some order, our guys emerged back in '92 with 'Opiate', a raw and genuine EP, where their entire subsequent career is encapsulated. 'Undertow' and 'Aenima' are the steps that lead them to the empyrean. It's 1996, and many of us realize we're in the presence of a phenomenon: Tool tell stories like no one before, Maynard sings of arms climbing up the anus, floods and Californias breaking off from the continent, of sex, flesh and crucifixions, of drugs, saints and fuck you. All with immense anger and sweetness, on detuned guitars, seismic basses, daring percussion lines, in eternal syncopation.

Then the mantra of 'Lateralus', of which we will speak. And then '10000 days', and here it gets tough. The ten thousand toolian days condense into 76 minutes. Alas, despite the effort for the substantial reduction, even those seem too many. It's a bit like the difference between the heartbeat and that of a pacemaker: 10000 days beats without interruption, in a precise and academic manner, I intentionally use the word "manner".
The rhythm proceeds regular and aseptic, regular even in irregularity. An artificial heart, not a spasm, not a jolt, not a leap into the void. Exercises in style, imitation of truth, in the groove of a progressive never so regressive. And so the album flows without any meaning, leaving only the froth at the mouth of those who were waiting for something juicy.

Rather significant is the frequent loss of attention (who would have thought), that one encounters during listening, like a movie already seen, or an evening with the woman you've been with for 10000 days. No disturbances, warmth, dismay, flights of fancy, in short nothing. Better 'Lateralus', without a doubt, and that was already decline, but the mystical-hypnotic vocation of that work had something remarkable about it, which here after more listens does not seem to emerge. That said, beware, they are still Tool, inevitable will be the admiration of those discovering them today, or of those who did not love the apocalypses of 'Aenima' or the claustrophobia of 'Undertow'. Inevitable is the following that '10000 days' will find in many lateralus fans (but not all).

But at the end of this pseudo-review, I convince myself that since praises and apologies for this album will not be lacking, it was inevitable to say my piece. This is necessary.