This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality
Embrace this moment, remember
We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.
James Maynard Keenan’s convoluted rhetorical “Why can’t we not be sober?” was my first foray into the American band Tool’s music back in 2012 when I was in college during my undergrad years. As much as I liked the track, it took me a few weeks to get my hands on the track list of 10,000 Days from one of my friends. I was informed of Keenan’s deeply personal touch to the album, but the track that I played on loop turned out to be Vicarious. Over the next few months, I had run through the album several times and until the day when I felt an awakening to Rosetta Stoned, I was always short of realising the absolute masterpiece at play. The lyrics of Right In Two struck the politically aware nerves within me and the title track made me shed tears more than once.
Back in those years, my connection to Tool’s music was more on an emotional level than on a musical one. Maynard’s lyrics and Adam Jones’ guitars were all I could hear albeit sections of Danny’s drums and Justin’s bass. I blamed it on myself and went on assuming that perhaps I was more comfortable listening to Opeth, Porcupine Tree, and Alcest. It was not until I had purchased decent headphones only last year, that the perception was shattered. It dawned on me that I did not hear much of Tool’s brilliance because I had substandard equipment. That brings me to my first point. Tool must be listened to on good quality headphones. Either good or exemplary.
A tempest must be true to its nature.
In 2019, Tool released their fifth studio album “Fear Inoculum”. I resisted the urge to listen to the single and judiciously waited for the full album release. The band’s decision to finally stream their albums on Play Music and Spotify was a welcome move.
Immunity long overdue, Contagion I exhale you.
The album’s title track begins with a mystique around itself. The slow and methodical build up is dazzling at first, baffling in the middle, and makes sense as it nears the end. My first run through the album left me speechless. Not in amazement; I simply did not have any opinions. It was far more complex than I had anticipated it to be. Besides, I had not heard much of their music in the past three or four years. While I was in Delhi, I met my friend and I remarked to him that I would need at least ten more listens before I could express any opinions. We retired that night to a few well rolled joints and he showed me a few of the drum covers of Tool tracks by Johnkew on YouTube.
While I generally do not listen to covers, especially instrumental ones, in retrospect I concede that my journey towards really appreciating Tool’s music began by watching Johnkew cover Rosetta Stoned. Besides the astonishingly tight cover, visually watching the intricate composition awed me. Till then, that is seven years into listening Tool, I had not regarded the fact that Danny Carey composed and thought beyond the confines of the possible and the past. Or that he has eight arms. Each section, each pattern, each fill carefully crafted to bring out a sense of the extraordinary and extend the realm of possibility. Danny Carey’s compositions reminded me of the sheer genius that John Bonham brought to Led Zeppelin, Neil Peart to Rush, Mike Portnoy to Dream Theater, Gavin Harrison to Porcupine Tree, and George Kollias to Nile.
The next day I listened to Pneuma and that was the end of Tool as I had once viewed them. My association with Tool was one of emotional reprieve; a realm that I would visit when I needed emotional soothing and pacifying. It transcended to a contrasting realm. Tool began to liven me up. The more I listened to them on an intricate level, I began to recognise sounds that I had earlier neglected. From a band that provided comfort, Tool’s music became a stimulus. Of course, I exclusively listen to Tool on headphones where I can hear every note, every stroke, every sound, and every string.
Appreciating Adam Jones’ presence as an enigma within the band is an essential part of listening to Tool. Subverting Jones’ primary riffs, Danny’s drumming often tends to bridge the layers that garner much attention, however Jones’ attention to detail is second to none. One of the prime examples I have is Pushit from the album Ænima. Up until the first phase of the track, he plays a fairly memorable and consistent riff. However the part where Keenan sings “I am somewhere I don’t wanna be”, he fills in the gaps with an almost trance-like set of notes along with Justin and Danny before breaking into a shattering riff that sends the track into its crescendo. Along with Maynard, Adam Jones is the face of Tool, but his genius in long wrenching riffs extends beyond that. His showing in Fear Inoculum’s 7empest may be one of the most remarkable acts in metal ever. As he moves from one phase of the track to another, he seems to be riding a dragon into the sunset showering gold dust along the way. His legacy is the legacy of Tool as much as it Maynard Keenan’s.
If one were to ask me what do I think of when they say Justin Chancellor, I might point them to the track Forty Six and Two. Besides leading the charge into the track, his composition presents the layer around which the track then builds itself. In general, he is one of the few modern bassists along with Dream Theater’s John Myung and Opeth’s Martin Mendez who can single-handedly run the show in a band. Of course, Slayer’s Tom Araya is untouchable when it comes to running shows, but we will keep things confined right now. His performances are wild, and in Fear Inoculum’s Invincible, he shows us that he’s still got it when he launches into a section with Danny alone while Adam takes a break. Besides, he can keep a straight face and explain the bass line of Ænima while saying, “Pass the goddamn butter.”
Tool and Danny Carey have a lot of masterpieces between themselves. Pneuma, Lateralus, Ticks and Leeches, Forty Six and Two, and Right In Two to name a few may be the popular highlights, but the story is never told without the absurdity that is Rosetta Stoned. It is an exhibition of one of Keenan’s best vocal performances and one of Danny’s most ridiculously complex compositions. I will leave it to an expert to explain the actual technicalities of the drumming in the links below by Johnkew, but as a listener, it captures the scene of a man rambling through a DMT overdose trip about aliens and outer body experiences in a picture perfect manner. The snare roll, fast rambles, unending polyrhythms, climaxing into “Overwhelmed as one would be, placed in my position” never fails to give me goosebumps.
Finally, the man who has become the face of Tool, but he is actually the butter on a well baked bread. Without Maynard’s creative genius, Tool even if it existed would be an extempore of exemplary instrumentalists. Besides Rosetta Stoned, his emotional performance in Wings For Mary (Pts. 1 & 2) remain one of metal’s most memorable tracks. However, it is in the album Lateralus, one can truly discover the phenomenon that is James Maynard Keenan. The Patient, Parabol & Parabola, Ticks & Leeches, and Lateralus truly demonstrate his ingenuity in song writing and vocal ranges.
Over the past few months, I have been listening exclusively to Tool and even then I feel myself caught in a spell at the group’s over 25 years of history in music. Growing up from Lateralus and 10,000 Days, into the present Fear Inoculum, I have dug deep into Undertow and Ænima and discovered Tool in their entirety. It has taken me eight years to finally appreciate the anomaly that they are in the rather cliched world of music. Being unique and timeless as artists takes not only extraordinary imagination but also an astute dedication to the art and Tool have time and again demonstrated their commitment to creating something rare and unique with each attempt.
On a personal note, I absolutely adore their latest release Fear Inoculum. After years of listening to metal and delving into various eras of progressive music and the continuation of life as such, I find the more meditative approach to the tracks almost therapeutic. As each member takes time to delve into the intricacies of the possibilities and then emerge with the rest to create a crest, then again hand over the reigns to another and together, it is at once enthralling as well as calming.
We are born of one breath, one word
We are all one spark, eyes full of wonder
Links:
1. Tool – Rosetta Stoned // Johnkew Drum Cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwFI1-rjEuM
2. Tool // Rosetta Stoned // Drum Deconstruction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EtB4kXzNmE&t=1289s
3. Tool – Right In Two – Johnkew Drum Cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC-x_vxYFqg
4. Bassiste Magazine # 71 – Justin Chancellor (Tool) – “Aenima”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj-g9a5Vzk0
Ink Idle 
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