Tool
Undertow

THE REVIEW

In a kaleidoscope of emotions and feelings, both primary and otherwise, lies the essence of this debut by the Tool, the blessed year of 1992. Words and music intertwine and blend deliberately to deliver to the synapses a tangible sound experience dominated by rancor, despair, annoyance, anger, and so on, with no real possibility of redemption. Maynard James Keenan's voice seems to give voice to the wounds and scars of each of us, as if trying to rise from the recesses of a black well in search of a light that must exist somewhere in some dimension. The music is fundamentally metal, but often the tempos stretch painfully, and the sounds layer themselves in a successful attempt, except perhaps for the title track (but we are still facing a debut), to give a defined face to what can be called art-metal. The words hit the listener like boulders on the conscience with the hardcore contribution of Henry Rollins in "Bottom" ("my piss and moans are the fuel that set my head on fire, I'm dead inside"), tackle difficult themes like child abuse in the possibly autobiographical "Prison Sex" ("my hands are tied, my head is low, my eyes are closed, and my throat wide open"), and drown in the ocean of sick love in "Sober," the best track on the record ("why can't we drink forever?"). In fact, from this album onwards, the foundations are laid for that sonic evolution which, through a few but highly complex works, will lead the Los Angeles group to become the flag bearer of nineties and two-thousands alternative metal, before getting lost through a series of legal disputes with the record company and parallel musical projects, primarily the electro-industrial Puscifer, and non-musical ones (the singer has also successfully ventured into wine production). Meanwhile, for years, the legend of a new work has remained in the air, never fully confirmed, and, mockingly, the crowd of devoted fans echo the same cries of invocation that Reverend Maynard so despised in the conclusive track of this debut ("Disgustipated").