Tool utterly defies classification. Is the band alternative? Clearly not.
"Alternative music is jocks with punk rock haircuts," Tool's vocalist Maynard James Keenan said.
Heavy metal perhaps? Wrong again -- the band's second album, "Undertow," deliberately played down the hard edge to the band's sound because "everyone thought we were a metal band after listening to 'Opiate' (the group's first EP)," according to drummer Danny Carey.
In their latest album, "AEnima," released this month on Zoo Records, Tool continues the trend begun in "Undertow" towards a darker, more subdued sound. Songs from "AEnima" are much more thoughtfully composed and recorded than in the band's previous albums.
This is not to say that the band has lost all its hard-core drive. Keenan's voice is as powerful as ever, at times soft, urgent and pleading, only to explode into a perfectly-timed cry of bitter rage and anguish when the distortion kicks in.
Guitarist Adam Jones also delivers in "AEnima," playing the brutal, unsympathetic chords and melodies that, along with Keenan's vocals, are the hallmark of Tool's morbid, furious sound.
Bass player Paul D'Amour recently left the band to form The Replicants. Listening to The Replicants album should convince one that D'Amour was not the drive behind the band, and his absence is almost unnoticeable in "AEnima."
Replacement bass player Justin Chancellor, formerly of the UK band "Peach," does an admirable job filling in for D'Amour.
Carey delivers driving, energetic beats that keep the songs on the latest album moving.
"AEnima" took the band two years to compose and just three days to record. Following the innovations of bands like Mr. Bungle, the songs on the album are closely interrelated, and thus the record is more of a one-hour-and-ten minute opus than a collection of 15 separate tunes.
The band accomplishes this unity with segues between songs, nonmusical tracks of sounds which bind the album into a cohesive whole.
One of the most interesting segues is "Message to Harry Manback." When not listened to carefully, this interlude sounds like a love poem.
But upon listening more closely, one discovers that "it's a message from a person that is very angry, very hurt, and very bitter," Keenan wrote.
Songs on "AEnima" continue in the fascinatingly detestable style of the band. "Stinkfist," the first track on the album, is an account of Keenan's search for deviant sexual activities to stave off boredom.
"Eulogy," a song about Christ, is well composed and recorded, saving it from sounding like a tired rehash of a Nine Inch Nails tune. This song actually sustains the listener's interest for the duration of its eight-minute length, no small feat.
A song about the band's "selling out" to the music industry, "Hooker with a Penis," gives evidence to a more self-reflective aspect of Tool's songwriting begun in "Undertow" and faithfully carried though to the latest album.
"Hooker with a Penis" is perhaps the most caustic tune on the album. Keenan attains a level of bitterness in his vocals unattained in either of the past two albums.
The album design itself is an innovative work of art.
The album's art -- continued in a similar vein to that found in the group's videos and previous albums -- must be seen to be believed.
While it may lack some of the thunderous drive of the "Opiate" EP, "AEnima" is commendable work from the L.A.-based quartet and is a worthwhile buy.
This article is part of an on-going series profiling up-and-coming bands.
