Tool - Ænima

Tool has remained on the public radar, but as a blob rather than a blip. No one really knows what to make of this band that doesn’t appear anywhere in their liner notes or videos, and takes great pains to remain aloof from their success. Successful they have been, however, since their unfathomable weirdness has kept people fascinated, this reviewer included. Their stances seem indecipherable. You know that their music is very much of one opinion socially and politically; you’re just not sure what it is.

The lead-off track from their album Ænima is a crunchy bit of dirge metal, and the title “Stinkfist” raises eyebrows right from the beginning. The almighty censors at MTV decided that title, as enigmatic as it is, was just a little too suggestive of repulsive sexuality, and thus changed it to “Track #1” on the video endnotes. The reason behind it doesn’t show up until one listens to the lyrics very carefully. Then the gag factor is very strong.

A little later in the record is a song called “H.,” which Tool professes is not about heroin. Also included are a burst of visceral anger called “Hooker With a Penis” that takes the adolescent position of translating rage into expletives, and a non-song called “Die Eier Von Satan,” which plays on 1940s fear and paranoia. It sounds evil and Satanic, with an angry voice saying something in German with rhythmic chants in the background where one is distinctly reminded of Nazis. But actually, the words the German man is saying are just a recipe for some kind of meatballs. This may be Tool’s attempt at humor, but it’s just too screwball to be funny.

The record is finally topped off with “Third Eye,” a call to experiment with drugs. But the place they say they will take you is not a happy Strawberry Fields wonderland, but a twisted and grotesque landscape of chilling nightmare, as the music suggests. Tool appears to be encouraging the use of psychotropic and mind-expanding substances, but they don’t lead to a happy ending.

After one has waded through all the static, carnival keyboards, explicit rage, and things which are supposed to elicit a snicker but instead get a retch, one gets to Tool’s message. That is one of hopelessness, social decay, and ultimate death. Maynard Keenan is very well-read and educated, and that just shows that those qualities can be dangerous in the wrong hands. His opinions are buried deep under the surface, and you’ll have to think really hard to find them and when you do you’ll be shaking your head in disbelief. That factor is what makes this worthwhile music, however. Music that can make you think as hard as this does is a very rare thing nowadays, even if you can come to no conclusions after that thought. A wise man answers every question with another question, after all.

Prime Cuts:
H.
Forty Six & 2
Third Eye

22 Rating: 8