The Good: Aurally interesting, Decent music, Duration
The Bad: Produced so lyrics are almost entirely inaudible in places, Strangely low replayability
The Basics: I would probably like Aenima a lot better if Tool didn’t make their music so much louder than their lyrics.
[Despite the time thing, I liked the opening, so I kept it! ? ]
I’ve been sitting here working on other projects for the last hour and a half because I have been dreading writing this review. The reason is simple: in trying to please my wife by choosing Maynard James Keenan – the common creative link between Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Pucifer – as my April Artist Of The Month, I have begun listening to albums which seem to have a common problem and that means a month of presenting opinions contrary to the norm. I’m not generally afraid of that and when I started listening to the Tool album Aenima, I felt I was listening to something familiar, as I had already listened to Tool’s album 10,000 Days and the Puscifer album V Is For Vagina. All three suffer from a common fate; the instrumental accompaniment is so robust that it frequently overwhelms the vocal performances which accompany them and the result is the listener has to strain to hear the lines.
This leaves me at a point where I might as well make my sweeping statement about this type of “Metal” music (so characterized because of the electric guitar work and the almost industrial emphasis on percussion in many of the songs): if you have something to say, great, make it heard. If you want to be about the way music can move a listener, fine: don’t add lyrics! Already in my music-listening experiences, I am tired of songs and albums where the lyrics are produced so far behind the instrumental accompaniment that it is the vocals that are accompanying the instruments and trying to understand what is being sung is virtually impossible without the lyrics. Sadly, that is where Aenima is and after listening to the loud guitars and angry-sounding vocals without getting much out of the lyrics after eight spinnings of the disc, I am ready to give up and move on to something better.
With fifteen tracks occupying 77:23 on c.d., Aenima is very much the creative work of Tool. All of the songs were written by some combination of the quartet, with the band’s original bassist contributing on some of the tracks. In fact, the only writing not from members of Tool comes from a sample on “Third Eye” which is the work of comedian Bill Hicks. Maynard James Keenan provides all of the lead vocals and the other three – Justin Chancellor, Danny Carey, and Adam Jones – provide the bulk of the instrumental accompaniment, which is guitar, bass and drums, primarily. In fact, the only thing the band is not credited with is production, which comes from the keyboardist David Bottrill.
Aenima may have been groundbreaking when it was originally released and it still sounds quite different from most other rock music. I write that with the caveat that listening to the heavy guitar, bass and drums of Tool on Aenima instantly evokes mental images of giant stadiums, flashing club lights and lots of people in leather looking angry or disenfranchised. That’s how the music sounds; the album sounds angry from the pounding of the drums to the thrashing on the guitars and to the echoes of the vocals. And, it is clearly intended to sound that way as the song “Die Eier von Satan” is merely a cookie recipe chanted harshly in German. No one translates into German when they want the sound to be romantic or even melodic.
This, however, is a fundamental problem for me with Aenima. After eight listens to the album, it blends together such that there is not a single tune from the album that stands out. The album itself forms a very bleak emotional resonance that makes the listener feel oppressed and angsty, despite the initially energetic guitarwork on “Stinkfist.” The album has long strings of guitar strumming that is electric and has a force to it, but it doesn’t create a tune. In other words, it is unlikely one will find themselves walking down the street humming something they heard on the album.
Vocally, Keenan has a fine voice. His vocals have a limited range, but he makes up for his lack of register range with an emotive spectrum that would be great, if only his vocals could be easily understood. Still, he expresses emotions well, from smooth and melodic on “Stinkfist” to angry and throwing vocal fire on “Forty Six & 2” and “Hooker With A Penis.” His actual voice is obscured through production elements on songs like “Eulogy” where portions of the song actually have Keenan sounding like he is on an old time radio before bursting forth with his actual voice.
It’s almost pointless to write about the lyrics to the songs Tool presents on Aenima because most of them are incomprehensible when actually listening to the c.d. On the page, however, it is clear Tool has something to say and it is unfortunate they make their music so overbearing that they cannot be understood. Indeed, outside the repetitive refrains on “Pushit,” there are some darkly poetic lines like “I Saw the gap again today / While you were begging me to stay / Take care not to make me enter / If I do we both may disappear / Know that I will choke until I swallow / Choke this infant here before me. / What is this but my reflection? / Who am I to judge or strike you down?” While the lyrics may be disturbing or explicit, there is a poetry on the album which is uncommon.
In fact, on the page, Tool actually has a decent sense of imagery which is not common in metal music I’ve heard before. When they wrote “Shroud-ing all the ground around me / Is this holy crow above me. / Black as holes within a memory / And blue as our new second sun. / I stick my hand into his shadow / To pull the pieces from the sand. / Which I attempt to reassemble / To see just who I might have been. / I do not recognize the vessel, / But the eyes seem so familiar” (“Third Eye”) they exhibit an uncommon talent.
But, in the end, I find myself wishing Aenima were just a book of poetry because the music is not as memorable and the statements are so obscured. I’m hoping some of Keenan’s other projects move away from these unfortunate faults.
The best song is “Pushit,” the low point is “Intermission.”
For other works by Maynard James Keenan, please check out my reviews of:
10,000 Days – Tool
Thirteenth Step – A Perfect Circle
V Is For Vagina - Puscifer
5/10
For other music reviews, please be sure to check out my index page, updated daily, by clicking here!
© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment