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Originally Posted by atsonicpark
Also, Lateralus is absolutely amazing. It's extremely soft compared to all their other stuff ('cept for Ticks and Leeches) but it has their most powerful compositions on it. That minute-long scream in "The Grudge" is unbelievable, as is the guitar part that comes in directly after the quiet part in "Ticks and Leeches". The 11-minute "Triad" encompasses everything that makes Tool awesome. The album is a bit too long (79:59.9999! The fuck?! I played the disc on my computer once and it read the album as 80:01!) but eh. When so much of it is amazing, who cares? Honestly, it's not my favorite album by them, but it is probably their best. They removed all the filler (the "Filler" here is still musical), and it has their best songwriting, ever.
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I got a lot of shit for saying Aenima had a lot of Filler but you are spot on with the lack of filler in lateralus. Further that scream in the Grudge is remarkable at it ability recapitulate the extremeness of frustration and angst in life. It is the epitome of screaming I swear, and I listen to a lot of hardcore and crust/chaos full of screaming, but the Grudge takes the cake. And I was just telling my sister about the mastery of that quiet bridge in Ticks and Leachs into the erruption on the same vibe as the Grudge. Since I was eight years old and fell in love with the power of dynamics, I have naturally flocked to albums the relly even overly on the power of loud to soft to loud. It gets me every time...
in regards to lateralus, as I said, it is is a metaphysical album in its ability to create and channel certain emotions of anxiety, frustration, angst. Essentially a great deal of this album (and excuse me for relying on religious dialouge but I am practically a theologian and it is the only language I know to describe some feelings sometimes, its my handicap
) is the emotional power of frustration carried in the saying, "Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachtani (which is construed, My God My God Why Have You Forsaken Me?") It is not that Maynard was trying to be religious, rather this album just naturally carried the empathy of frustration and angst, and that is also the entire purpose of the Passion theology, that the Suffering God Jesus is supposed to be able to relate to the suffering spirit of humanity. Life is suffering, and Jesus is supposed to be the relief of suffering because he experienced the very pain and anguish of mortality and the feelings of weakness of the human experience and condition. It is deep theology to contemplate God feeling the pain of the weakness and insecurity of being human but that is a digression left for a different thread.. back to tool
For me, this album is my release. The Grudge captures a bad day and gives you a language to express your inarticulate groanings of a frustrated soul in anguish. It climaxes with that long scream like the weeping of a soul in the weakness of being subject to forces outside of your control. Life is suffering.
"Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Justify denials and grip 'em to the lonesome end.
Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Terrified of being wrong. Ultimatum prison cell.
Saturn ascends, choose one or ten. Hang on or be humbled again."
then the Patient continues with this vibe, carrying you deeper into your internal dialouge with your own emotions and experiences, helping to solidify, perhaps define your angst and help you relieve it by naming it and disregarding it after the fact. Just knowing something can be a relief unto itself.
"A groan of tedium escapes me,
Startling the fearful.
Is this a test? It has to be,
Otherwise I can't go on.
Draining patience, drain vitality.
This paranoid, paralyzed vampire act's a little old.
But I'm still right here
Giving blood, keeping faith
And I'm still right here."
but the album provides a glimpse of hope to transcend your grief. after all the excitement of confronting the beast in yourself, you come to Parabol and Parabola which are very theological and comsological songs about existing..
"We barely remember what came before this precious moment,
Choosing to be here right now. Hold on, stay inside...
This body holding me, reminding me that I am not alone in
This body makes me feel eternal. All this pain is an illusion."
It is interesting to think of the fact that the human body, the mortal and weak body, could actually be a relief to the eternal soul, a kind of comfort to know that your body is your existence. You have a physical body to define and keep company of your spiritual existence reminding you that you are not alone, and it is your spirit which makes pain transcendental and illusory. I had never thought about the mortal body having such a relieving quality as being your companion, the friend of the soul, until I heard this song..
that quiet bridge and scream of "Suck Me Dry" is almost self-explanatory in this context..
"Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.
Reaching out to embrace the random.
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come."
In Lateralus you find that hope return, to reach out and embrace with joy and surprise, like the tenets of Buddhism or Chaos Theory, the simple pleasure of existence, 'embracing whatever may come' as inevitable reality and an experience worth having one way or the other, as your experiences are all you have.
"And in my darkest moment, fetal and weeping
The moon tells me a secret - my confidant
As full and bright as I am
This light is not my own and
A million light reflections pass over me"
The Hope is growing stronger here, it is not necessarily "God" that provides relief, but it is a light outside of ourselves, it is the reality of reality which is comforting, that the universe is not fucking with you personally (toltec wisdom)
this is a good fucking album, it captures quite a great deal of the human experience and condition, both in its lyrical poetry but especially in the sound and power dynamics of the music itself. fuck the haterz, TOOL is the shit, and Lateralus is a masterpiece.