Tool - Aenima
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Free Music Notes for Aenima
Free Music Review: Focus on the music.
Hit: 5 Stars
First off I want to point out that I believe this album is definitely an irrefutable work of art, like it or hate it, it must be appreciated in some fasion. That out of the way, I need to express my sickness at the amount of "This album changed my life..." or "Tool is a spiritual journey through a magical land." Tool neither was meant to change or life, or be a spiritual journey, much of what Maynard Keenan is asking in his lyrics is for one to just open their mind. By labeling Tool as such a spiritual focal point you are defeating his message, use your own mind, create your own art, evolve YOURSELF to the next level and open your mind to at least consider the views of others. Saying, "All who don't like Tool should burn in hell cause they have no taste..." is the metaphorical equivalent of spitting in Maynard's face and becoming the "Hooker with a Penis." If someone does not like Tool, respect it, and open your mind to their views, because the more you do, the more you yourself will become a better person, more appreciative of art, and more adapt at the ways creativity. Ok, I will now, at least for the moment, step off of my soap box. The reason the music that Tool, most especially Aenima strikes a chord with us is because 1. The drum beat is heavily trance influenced, it puts you in a different state of mind 2. The guitars are heavy, and the distortion is very good, but overall it follows a similar rythm pattern with the drum beats, and creates a very dark atmosphere. Not to mention that everything is played in minor scales, or minor pentatonic scales. It is simplistic, but it relates to something inside us, and that is what makes it beautiful. Now, Maynard Keenans voice is so raw with emotion, we feel what he feels. No, you aren't going on a spiritual journey, you are going maybe on Maynard's spiritual journey. Their is a difference. The music should be a stepping stone, whether you are a satanist, a christian, a follower of Islam, a hindu... whatever, it doesn't matter, the music provides a ladder to your place of meditation. If your not spiritual, then it provides some kind of respite for your mind at the least, and puts to ease some of the day to day worries. It is as if Keenan sits down, and shares with you his heart on alot of issues, for the sole purpose of saying, "I know how you feel." The lyrics for the most part are impersonal, meaning they should relate to your life in how you see them- a something for everyone kind of deal. I'll admit it, the first time I heard "Jimmy" I cried quite a bit. Not because I was going on a spiritual journey with Tool, but because Tool had hit a place in my heart that allowed me to face myself. Its just music, yes, good artistic music, true also, but I won't discount the fact that its purpose is inward reflection. When my fiancee left me, I put in the back of my mind, I left it. When I heard that song it came back, and helped me, continues to help me deal with it. So to all who say Tool is a dark evil superstitious primarily satanically influenced band- maybe you should listen to the music, study it, and then let it effect you in a personal way. Whether it motivates you to act for the betterment of society, via Aenima, or it lets you ponder the beliefs which are fathers held dear, accept them or reject them, your choice, but at least think about them, via Eulogy- it is self reflection that is the theme, and the rejection of settling for a status quo. The album itself is not life altering, but with anything that causes introspection, it has the potential for life altering motivation for some people. It is a truly beautiful work, that you should at the least be a very personal experience.Free Music Review: Marvellous. Genious. Imho the best alternative metal album.
Hit: 5 Stars
A strange phenomena - regardless how much new and talented music I listen to, Tool's ?Aenima" remains my favourite album that is always a joy to come back to. And not only a sensitive, but a cerebral joy as well. I mean, if you do not like deep, dark, cathartic and artsy music you might not get what Aenima is about, but why uderestimate yourself?
Aenima teaches you. Not only to have self-respect and dignity, but to be aware what's going on aroud you, not to sink into a pig's existense, to (the infamous) 'think for yourself', to be human and humane, to see that people are a priori united, to reach out for others and so on. In fact, all of Tool's music does, but Aenima is the band at its best balance of focus and quality. The word 'teaches' may scare you away, but it is no brainwashing or hypocritical moralizing. Maynard shares with you his experience of searching for what is the core, the reason, and the aim of a thinking and soulful man. He seems to have found some of its characteristic traits which you are also about to discover if you are going to listen to Aenima.
What makes the album such an outstanfing landmark is that it is probably the first alternative album with such a deep and all-embracing concept. It came out in 1996, when alt rock/metal seemed stuck in pointless pitiful whining with no less pointless anger. Not that Tool lacks anger, but, as Maynard said, anger is nothing wthout compassion. Unlike other things bands that were around, Tool is not at all anti-social (don't get the title track wrong - 'read between the lines'!), simply because a human aware of his surroundings can't be one. Nor is Tool in any way pessimistic; music might seem depressing at first, but when you sink into it, you will probably be 'enlighted' and get energy needed to do positive things, to push things forward.
My review may mislead you so far as I have spoken only about Maynard, the singer. The truth is, the whole emotional and cerebral delivery is carried by all the four members of the band. All the instrumental sections are so precisely elaborated and expressive, all suit the lyrics in such a way that the music becomes really expressive and even if you do not get the lyrics, instruments will help you understand the meaning of the songs. Technically, it is absolute brilliance, especially the work of Danny, the drummer. The band is so powerful - eveything from headbanging to multi-sectional operatic is done amazingly (not that operatic means pretentious like, say, Queen; do not believe reviews that say there is too much pretence and self-indulgence). The production is muddy to further emphasize the darkness and deepness of the songs and the subjects they touch (one unexpected association comes with the books of Dostoyevsky, which are too dark for some people, but again - how can you deliver subliminal, creepy and controversial emotions in other way?).
The songs themselves (there are actually 9 of them, other tracks are interludes to catch breath) are rather long, multi-sectional progressive pieces, each one on a different subject. My favourites includes Stinkfist, Eulogy and 46&2, but every song, even enery minute is absolutely brilliant. With Third Eye, the album reaches a logical conclusion; this track might be the deepest of the deep, a tremendous cathartic experience.
Chances are that you will have a rush of happiness when you will undergo the experience of listening to the whole album in case you understand it. And it is not animal or plant happiness; it is human happiness. Enjoy.
Free Music Review: "learn to swim"
Hit: 5 Stars
Precise, complex, and richly textured, the songs on Aenima move rock-n-roll to places it's never been before. This is some of the best music I've ever heard. The lyrics on this CD will make you think as well as feel: The vocals, guitar, base, and percussive elements combine effectively to emphasize a contrast between intricate melody and distorted screams of raw energy and emotion. Williams' copy-and-paste editorial review above misses the true content of Aenima by universes: To say "There's not a whole lot of variety" and "high gear for the chorus, and repeat" in the same breath as "Tool" post Aenima (or Undertow for that matter) is incomprehensible nonsense. It's tempting to fill up the rest of the space with a diatribe on the distilled inaccuracies in Williams' short review ... but only because the review's inaccuracies, by contrast to reality, illuminate key elements in the music.
One word Williams got right was "texture". Perhaps "vitriol" too, to be fair, although MJK's lyrics seem to indicate his meaning is something beyond that: Near the end of the arguably (delightfully!) vitriolic song "Aenema", he urges the listener "don't just call me a pessimist ... try and read between the lines". But texture is certainly a key element that makes the music of Tool the rare animal it is: The very antithesis of repetitive, it turns out.
The song "H." is a good example: Even when a refrain is repeated in the lyrics (and then only once in a 6:07 long song), it has mutated into something different from what was heard the first time though. If you listen to what's happening underneath the lyrics, the guitar, base and percussion are modulating the rhythm, note emphasis, and the notes themselves throughout the song.
In a more insightful review by J. Ivey, Ivey observes:
"Eschewing the time-honored tradition of repeating a hook until it's beaten into the listeners head, Tool creates a striking guitar line and then casually abandons it. This in turn is then replaced with a new hook , only to be replaced again, all with fluid ease."
I've had to listen to some songs dozens of times to catch even half of what's going on. Many of the song had a raw feel at first, but this is deceptive: Listening more attentively, I can't help but think they are actually very precisely mapped out and must have taken many, many hours in the studio to produce.
Tool's lyrics often lay open and explore unpleasant, under-examined aspects of human nature: "Gee, what's under here Wally? Uhg. Oh...yak.".
Sort of like a Francis Bacon retrospective.
I think the heart of Tool's appeal (for me, at least) lies in what I perceive to be a Rejection of commercialism, "pop culture", the recording industry itself, and the insipid inanities we've become largely desensitized to that wash over us in waves via television newscasters, sit-coms with laugh tracks, radio talk-shows, newspapers, and the internet, as enterprises compete for our almighty advertising dollar.
The form of the music follows the function of great art: An alarm clock ringing, a wake up call. Or, perhaps, like a small stake in the heart of a very large vampire, Maynard is trying to set us free from a self created, soulless existence.
Then again, maybe I've just been listening to too much Tool lately. :-)
Free Music Review: Ænima will change your point of view about the world!
Hit: 5 Stars
This album is above anything i've heard and i have heard many albums as a huge music fan and a musician.At first this album didn't have a big impact on me and i think it's because TOOL's music on this album is very complex and it has many layers of music and therfore at first listen it's hard to catch everything so it may sound is some kind of weird hard rock music. It IS weird, the sound is very 'avant-gardeish' and Maynard vocals are something you've probably never heard before if you are not a Tool fan (or APC fan), he is totatly amazing. My point is that TOOL has created something truly original and because it's so avant-garde or original or complex it may hard to catch how genius this album is at the first few listens. It sure took me a while to understand the whole album and it has became my fav 90's album because it is simply the best.
The album's concept is some kind of world conception that talks about changing or evolving, ignore the common conception of our materialistic world and start looking into it more deeply. Maynard's lyrics are full of refrences and it's impossible to know what he means really when he writes his song simply because i think he wants the fans the understand the album personally because the way he writes can mean diffrent things to diffrent people and that's what, i think, is the best thing about TOOL's lyrics.
The music itself is amazing, it's very dark, very rough and aggressive, the songs are full of changes in mood, tempo, and such... it changes from heavy riffs and hard drums with Maynard screems on the background to soft bassline with guitar melodies and Maynard's amazing fragile voice that sounds a lot like a young boy in pain or something like that. Also notice that Maynard's vocal melodies are so diffrent from the songs' roots but they blend so well and it creates such an amazing melody upon layers of heavy bits. The whole layers thing is what makes the albums sound so good, and it's really hard for me to explain the layers thing, you just have to listen to it and try to notice how the guitar blends so well with low-end worm bassline and Danny's drumming which masters the double-bass drums in a way no other 'metal' drummer does, just diffrent.
Another thing about the album is that it's made as an experience, you MUST listen to it from the start to the end because it all flows so well just like a single song of 77min, and this is because of the mood; since the first song the album gets you into this dark, depressing mood and this mood effect is a lot because of short tracks between the songs who are some kind of transitions who gets you into the mood of the album or of the next song, this experience end with a breathtaking psychodelic track of over 13min which sums the concept of the whole world conception thing with using the metaphor of a third eye that everybody has but always closed, and when he opens his third eye he starts looking at the world diffrently, more naively like when this person was little and wasn't aware of materialistic conception yet.
This is TOOL's masterpiece, and one of the most original albums ever written, buy it and listen open minded because this thing gets into your mind without even knowing, this is music as drugs and i mean it, really! VERY STRONG DRUGS... THIS IS LSD EVEN! :)
Free Music Review: Title?
Hit: 5 Stars
Aenema is the sonic equivalent of descending into a hellishchaos of nightmare conceived emotion, only to be lifted upwards intoan explosion of enlightenment and spiritual growth. The album's cover set this sentiment perfectly for me ... a white flash of light.. a near death experience that one must pursue while delighting in the audio landscapes that these incredible musicians have pulled off. And while the essence of your soul is englufed by its uncomprimising dark melodies, and anger filled exploding guitar riffs... and when its all done, your mind and soul have spiraled off into countless tangents... (the eyes of which emerge from the flash of white light)This album defies easy categorization, becuase it is trluy original. This is not the death metal of fear factory / sepultura. Nor is it the subdued, compromised metal of the early 90's grunge era. This is tool. say no more. The music is cerebral and spiritual, and concentrates more on mood and emotion rather than just simply pummeling your brains out of your ears.
But as I mentioned before, "Aenema" is MUCH more. Unlike "Undertow", Aenema is constantly elapsing into new and ethereal territory, as each track rolls right off the other. These tracks arent really "songs" per say, but they set the mood for the power of each upcoming track. For those of you who consider these "space fillers", you are COMPLETELY wrong. Great care was taken with respect to the placement of the tracks, so as they could fluctuate the listener's mood as much as possible. If you can't listen to the album all the way through, then you are missing the essence of the album itself.
Be sure to check out the cut "Forty Six and 2" which has the best bassline of all time. The subsequent feel to it rings of early goth bands like Joy Division. "Hooker with A Penis" is consumed by gigantic metal-punk guitar riffs while elapsing into the semi melodic song structure that Tool executes so very well on this album. The title track is a satirical poke at Hollywood and the pop culture life, as Maynard exclaims in one of the best lyrics of all time : "Here in this hopeless f------ hole we call LA The only way to fix it is to flush it all away. Any f------ time. Any f------ day. Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay." And last but not least is the stunning, and lengthy masterpiece that is "Eulogy". "Eulogy" is a symphony for heavy metal. The song structure is highly complex, opening with a soft collage of eerie basslines and soft percussion before being pummeled by loud guitars and maynard's screaming. The song quickly morphs into a defiant, hell ridden piece. In all of its 8 minutes, there is not one minute like an other.
But perhaps the best part of this album is Maynard's lyrics. They represent a spiritual journey through darkened realms... whether he yells, sings softly to us, whispers - he is the most dynamic frontman out there today. He is intelligent, as is Tool's music.
Heavy Metal as Mozart would have wrote it. Its beautfiful in its structure and compostion, yet ominous and seething with dark emotion. One of the best albums of all time... from any genre! A brilliantly executed masterpiece. HIGHLY RECCOMENDED!