Lateralus

Metal’s most mysterious band releases their highly anticipated third full-length album Lateralus, much to the utter delight of their loyal and die-hard followers, myself included. With the downward spiral of rap/metal now at hand, with bands sounding like each other and looking like juvenile mall rats, we can look forward to a new age of melodic, progressive mature metal music surges in 2001. Tool pull out all the stops, injecting all of the metal meat and ritual magic they can muster into what may well be remembered as a metal classic.

Plain and simple folks, this is great music! Comparing this album to their 1996 masterwork Aenima, Tool have grown musically 110% in all departments. If no other band releases an album as intense as this pretty soon, Tool will be untouchable. The songs‹more like movements‹have odd musical time signatures, Eastern and tribal percussion sneaking in from every which way and the distinct and pitch-perfect powerhouse vocals of Maynard James Keenan leading the charge. If you’re expecting the sweet and melodic characteristics Keenan displayed with A Perfect Circle, you¹re in for a shock. Sadness, anger, a sense of spiritual release, and screams straight out of the bowels of the unknown may best describe the singer¹s approach this time around.

The rhythm section of guitarist Adam Jones, bassist Justin Chancellor, and monster drummer Danny Carey are relentless in taking the music to different planes of consciousness, from panic-stricken riffage, to adventures into outer space as well as the ethereal. The opener, "The Grudge" is drenched in odd-time melodies that could throw one off at first, but continued listening will give you modern rock at it¹s fiercest. The bass-line intro of the album¹s first single, "Schism," is enough to get Tool fans drooling. "Parabola" is hard rock ecstasy, while "Ticks & Leeches" unleashes the raw but calculated power of drummer Carey. The next three tracks, "Disposition," "Reflection," and "Triad" were originally written as a one-piece, 20-minute epic. They have since been cut up into the three-song narrative of its present form that involves a mantraic interlude on the second section bearing enough energy to transport you to the inner reaches of your mind.

Being the enigmatic force that Tool is, they end Lateralus with "Faaip De Oiad" (translatable as "the voice of God") with Danny Carey ripping out a dope drum solo as a recording of an employee of the infamous Area 51’s ranting sounds off at the front. It’s disturbing. Consider Lateralus an experience rather than an album and do take the time to listen to it in its entirety, and I guarantee total music enlightenment.