Tool - Aenima
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Free Music Notes for Aenima
Free Music Review: Epitomal Tool - Start Here
Hit: 5 Stars
Tool have a reputation for being "deep". Most often, being overly deep - to the point of ridiculousness. They're not. They just choose some really esoteric things to use as metaphors for otherwise very simple things.
This album opens with "Stinkfist", a song that hits you like a sledgehammer, it's so heavy. On the surface, it seems to be about a particularly painful-sounding and disgusting sexual practice. In fact, it's actually a heartfelt song about the necessity to shock people in order to get them to pay attention to anything these days.
This is pretty much epitomal of Tool. They're a heavy metal band - heavier than most, even, given their focus on bass guitar and drums - but they're also perfectionist composers. Their music is intricate, and gives the impression that it's been put together like a thousand-piece puzzle. Sometimes it's hard to believe that all that music comes from only one guitar, one bass, one set of drums and one singer.
This album is the central Tool album. If you're interested in Tool, maybe heard some of their songs on the radio, or just been recommended by a friend (who possibly preached Tool at you like some kind of religious fanatic), this is where you start.
Talking about the songs is almost impossible. There's pretty much nothing out in the mainstream to compare Tool to, and still very little outside the mainstream. You really have to listen to it yourself, see if you like it.
But the thing is, pretty much everyone likes Tool. Or, to put it another way, almost nobody hates Tool. Those who do have either misunderstood that the "deep" elements of Tool are tongue-in-cheek, or they've got something wrong with their brain.
Anyway, the gist is this: This album is a masterpiece of expertly composed music, clever/fun lyrics, and pointless interludes. Yeah, nearly half the tracks are short clips of strange noises, but the quality and length of the actual music is such that you really won't care (in fact, there are many who complain that these silly interludes are missing from Tool's later albums).
Free Music Review: Impossible, it can't be this good
Hit: 5 Stars
You know those albums that even after listening to them for over four five years you still discover new things about each song? What's that you've never heard or owned that kind of album? Well my friend, it's high time you bought TooL's Aenima. I still can't believe how great this record is, and how it gets you thinking, and how many themes it covers, and how such an innovative album could be so heavy and smart and the same time. The songs are all diverse, epics in they're own ways each of them telling a different story and teasing the listener to try and guess they're meaning. It has those heavy tracks that are fun to listen to and are the first ones to grab your attention: Stinkfist, Eulogy, Forty Six and Two and the songs that you'll appreciate gradually, for example Third Eye. Those haunting preludes like Message to Harry Manback wich at first you'll laugh at then skip, along with Dier Von Satan(Eggs of Satan) and Cesero Summability(wich is the weirdest tihng I've ever heard) are not spare parts and fit perfectly in the album as a whole.
This album works on so many levels it's simply insane. It could stand alone as one of the best rock albums ever, its' possibly one of the most innovative pieces of music out there and it's the smartest you'll ever hear.
You'll probably hear a few quircks about Aenima, some say the songs are too long and tend to drown on and on, and some complain about the muddiness of the production. First of all the songs are allowed to go as long as they do for the simple reason that the band have given the songs that type of freedom, to start and finnish at they're own will. For many this doesn't bother them, since all of the songs are entertaining and go through so many different structures and varitations within themselves . The muddiness fits this album like a glove, it's sets the mood, it's prefect so what's wrong with that?
So for one of the greatest albums ever produced I think you'll be getting alot more than your money's worth for years and years to come, I mean none of us have even begun to feel the effects of this one yet.
Free Music Review: Sets Standards for Years to Come
Hit: 5 Stars
Tool is a band that other groups will be judged against in terms of originality and talent. Tool's influences can be found in almost all of the mainstream rock that reaches airways lately, and Aenima remains the band's best album.
Taking what Undertow left fans with and improving upon it in almost every aspect, Tool has created a dark, foreboding atmosphere. Tool, however is not a band that you will love the first time you hear them. Tool is also not "background music" and must be listened to in order to appreciate the uniqueness.
Some fans complain about Tool's knack for including "filler" songs when in actuality, "filler" fails to exist in this album. Without these "filler" songs, Aenima would not reach the potency for drawing the wide fanbase it has acquired. For example, Intermission is a circus-like song sporting the guitar riff of the next song.
Maynard's lyrics are a reason to buy the album in themselves. Deep and dark, the lyrics spark up emotion in any intent listener. Combined with Maynard's dry, pessimistic sense of humor, the vocalization adds another layer to the music.
You might recognize Stinkfist and Aenima as the two main hits of the album (being released as music videos). However, the only songs I find myself skipping are the songs without Maynard's vocalization or the band's unbelievable musicianship.
The album is highly recommened to all audiences. Tool is not the metal you would come to expect from the genre, Maynard does not growl or scream, rather yells at times in a way that only Maynard can. Tool's music can also be soothing at times rather than the abrasiveness from bands such as Slipknot and Killswitch Engage. However, Tool will also appeal to fans of all other metal bands with the musical and emotional intensity.
Other bands to check out- A Perfect Circle (Maynard's other band, Chevelle (easy to see Tool influences here), and Mushroomhead (harder with growling but extremely unique and talented).
Free Music Review: Not Your Average Metal Album. . .
Hit: 5 Stars
Metal (or meTal as the Amazon forum likes to call it). Rock and roll pushed to the excessive extremes of volume, technicality, masculinity, and darkness. Worshipped by fans, too often dismissed by critics, and attacked by polititions of both major American parties. It makes a great soundtrack to our frustration and pusuit of power in our lives. Great stuff, but with a great flaw: heavy handedness. Good thing we have Tool.
Tool has the unique ability to make refreshingly un-pretentious, soulful heavy metal that clearly comes from the bottom of a very dark heart.
Combining the epic majesty of Pink Floyd and the heaviness of prime time Black Sabbath, Tool's "AEnima" is possibly the most strangely beautiful metal album I know of. Adam Jones's guitar can scream like a monster and sing like an angel, dripping with distortion and echo. Justin Chancellor plays both stomping basselines at the lowest part of the instrument's down-tuned range and clean, lyrical lead melodies nearer to the top. Danney Carey brings on pounding prog beats rich with intricate fills and tricky time signatures. The famous Maynard James Keenan's one-of-a-kind vox completes the formula, sorrowfully serenading one moment and bellowing with rage in the next. I think the contrasting of elements is a good stragey to making memorable music. "AEnima"'s juxtaposition of brutality against sweetness is an exhibit of that strategy executed perfectly.
Some key tracks:
"Pushit" - A lengthy progtastic mini-drama. One of the "AEnima"'s more ethereal songs.
"AEnima" - A prayer for the Apocalypse. Probably the best (and angriest) song on the album.
"Hooker with a Penis" - A big FU (literally) to moronic fans who accuse bands of selling out. Makes a great headbanger.
"Message to Harry Manback" - A drunk Italian guy leaving a threatening message on an answering machine with some melancholy piano music playing the background. One of several short segues between songs.
Free Music Review: Two Words......Ear Candy
Hit: 5 Stars
Okay, to start off this review, I am NOT a kid. In the middle of August I was at the music store browsing for something new. Then I remembered my friend telling me about Tool and saying how great they were. So I decided to give them a listen and picked up AEnima. When I got home, I put the album into my cd player and pressed the play button. At first I felt many mixed emotions, like I thought the album was way too weird but being the person I am, gave the cd a second chance and boy was I glad I did! after about a third listen I started to realise how amazing AEnima really was. A materpiece that is perfect in everyway.
Maynard James Keenan is the best vocalist I have ever heard. Adam Jones and Justin Chancellor are good on guitar & bass and Danny Carey's skills on the drums are simply mindblowing. AEnima is one of those magical cds that come along once in a lifetime where you don't have to keep skiping though songs because they are all very good. The lyrics for each are some of the best I heard in a longtime and it is very rare to find a band today with deep meaning in their lyrics. But I warn you, just like what happened to me, Tool's music does take a few listens to get use to.
Well it has been almost two months since I bought AEnima and I have listened to it everyday since then, I also bought all of Tool's albums and none of them are bad, including 10,000 days, heck I even saw them live last week.
Oh and just one more thing, regarding the one star reviews (like the idiot below me saying how he got cheated out of his money by getting this.)They are some of the most highly unintelligent reviews I have ever seen and most of them are coming from kids who worship simple plan and morons who are brainwashed by MTV. Word of advice kiddies, go back to your pop [...] and leave Tool alone for they are way too sophisticated for you. And for anyone who is reading this and thinking about bying AEnima, ignore all the one stars as much as possible.