fuuuuck that made me put on 10,000 Days again

I've seen a lot of hate for 10,000 Days on this forum over the last few years, and I just have to give my 2 cents:

Are you fucking kidding? This is going to sound pretentious, but do people (including a lot of Tool fans) just have no ear for intellectual music? I don't understand it. 10,000 Days, in my opinion, is on par with Lateralus, and it blows Aenima, Undertow, and Opiate right out of the water. Again in my opinion (but speaking as a former music major), I think there is more musical gold just in Lost Keys/Rosetta Stoned and Intension/Right in Two than there is in all three of Tool's EP and first two albums combined. That is, if I had to choose, I would rather listen to Lost Keys/Rosetta Stoned and Intension/Right in Two by themselves than listen to Opiate, Undertow, and Aenima.

Lateralus is a brilliant album. 10,000 Days is so far beyond brilliant that (apparently) they actually lost a little bit of their fan base with it. It's a big step up technically from Lateralus, and it's even a step up from "progressive metal." Particularly with Lost Keys/Rosetta Stoned, it's now reaching into the realm of experimental metal. That should make you all happy; it has gotten to the point where Tool are challenging themselves so much that they have actually transcended the progressive metal genre.

One thing Tool have become masters at in my opinion, which sets them even further apart from other similar bands (as if any band is similar to Tool), is texturing. Tool's ability to texture their music is completely unmatched, and 10,000 Days is really the first concrete evidence of that. Lateralus was an improvement with regard to texture, but 10,000 Days is a perfection of it. Each note on each instrument fits flawlessly in between each note on each other instrument, and they weave together to make Tool sound like a machine throughout the whole album. They sound like one cohesive and fluid unit. Sure, you can listen to Karnivool, or Porcupine Tree, or The Mars Volta, or even Meshuggah, but it's never quite the same, and it's because the parts are not written to mesh as well as they do in Tool.

To bring this back on topic, my point is that 10,000 Days was a direction Tool needed go. They're artists. They knew they couldn't please everybody with a follow up to an album as good as Lateralus, so they did what true artists do: they challenged themselves to explore and break artistic boundaries, and they wrote music for their own sake, not for anybody's else. This band does not make the same record twice, and that's why 10,000 Days will still be relevant in 20 years, just like Undertow is still relevant nearly 20 years later. Even if you don't like 10,000 Days very much, at least find it within yourself to appreciate that about Tool. It is their unique desire to grow and progress that allows them to continue blowing our minds album after album. I think they need to explore themselves and their boundaries further with their fifth album, even if nobody likes what the end result is, and that's what I want to see.

never forget, never forgive

Tool aren't renowned for breaking musical boundaries and I don't think they've ever claimed that themselves. Also I'd like to hear what riffs you think are rehashed because all I hear is nodding to other bands/songs influences. This is something that Adam has always done. Nods to the Melvin's, King Crimson and even Meshuggah. I hear similarities in riffs between Third Eye and Rosetta Stoned but I'd be surprised if that wasn't intentional. Those two songs have similar lyrical themes. Again, I see that riff as a nod to Third Eye.

Either that or Adam Jones is such an incompetent guitar player that he doesn't know he's copying himself. I find that unlikely.

I never understood the whole "complaining that a Tool album sounds like Tool" issue.

Is that what is happening here?

Define "intellectual music". Is Tool intellectual because of danny careys time signatures? is that all it takes to be intelectual? The only time i would ever describe tool as being intellectual is in interviews, and if you have ever seen an interview w the band, you can tell very quickly that they seem to be more aptly described by the word "silly".

IMO when Tool is at there best, its not bc they are being intellectual, its because the music sounds good. Saying that tools music is intellectual sounds like another way of saying "it sounds good to me".

maybe

What the hell is wrong with Wings???? I love them.

I'd like to hear a song in which the lyrics make me think about just the music.

haters gonna hate.

In truth though; gotta realize that not everyone likes Tool for the same reasons.

I believe this to be true.

I'm critical of 10kD a lot of the time, but thats only bc of what I am comparing it to. Taken at face value 10kd is a hell of an entertaining album.

Does anyone else rememebr back in 06 when the opening riff to Vicarious first leaked on some radio station somewhere? That was a good feel.

I do, I remember skipping one of my college courses to hear it, good times

Thank you, good sir.

Add to that list the Puscifer album and tour and you can probably add a couple of months to that timeline, though a lot of it depends on how much input Maynard has had up until this point. There's no reason to think it's anything other than "very little" at this stage.

you will not deny that tool is an evolution of music, correct? if that is the case, then opiate, undertow, and aenima carry their own weight and merit. tool had to learn how to write increasingly "epic" (hate that word now because of the internet, but it is the most applicable) songs. if they had started with lateralus and then done 3 10k days like albums they would be another lost prog band. complexity for its own sake has buried thousands of talented musicians in obscurity. who ever talks about gong?

aenima in particular is their bridge album. that to me is still their most solid album with the best mix of straightforward groove-laden music and creative flourishes. third eye, aenema, 46 and 2, pushit, and eulogy ALL surpass their counterpart tracks on 10k days in my opinion.

I agree. Obviously I'd like to hear some Tool material sooner rather than later, but it makes very little difference to my day to day life (Fourtheye commitments aside)

the wait doesn't affect me until the "leaked info" stage where we get the fake tracklists and review snippets. i think at that point the real potential starts to dawn on me. i dont think this makes me better than anyone, but undertow was when i got into tool, so i got the pleasure of being blown away by aenima, i got to drool over salival (or salivate, missed opportunity perhaps?) and then be blown to pieces by lateralus. the anticipation for 10k days turned out to be better than the album, but the whole package was definitely something i didnt regret looking forward to or purchasing.

the anticipation to 10kd was epic

Man, you speak like a God.

Long winded post here. I'm also going to run the risk of sounding like a damn contrarian, but I don't think I can, in good conscience, determine whether the band is employing "complexity for its own sake". That seems like a subjective assessment to me. I mean, what metrics are people using to make that kind of determination?

As I see things, Tool tries to make everything "fucking epic". For me the question is, does the music sound genuine or forced. Another totally subjective assessment. But I think we can all agree that a consensus seems to exist that 10kd felt less "cohesive" than Lateralus or Aenima, no? If cohesion is the issue then we should consider the fact that it might not be the music that isn't up to par, but the package as a whole. To me 10kd was problematicaly funny and serious at the same time. That is still my only critique. There is some drug silliness (The Pot, Rosetta Stoned), but then there is some seriously sobering shit as well (Jambi, Wings for Marie). I think that the band perfected the silly/serious dichotomy with Aenima.

Its also possible we have different definitions of the word "epic". For instance, at this point can anyone here imagine Tool playing in even a smallish venue? Besides the various segues, what do you consider to be the most pithy Tool song? Probably something off of the first LP right? So following that logic, is it really a bad thing that Tool tries to make their music sound "fucking epic"? It just seems like they (the band) know what they are. They know their strengths and weaknesses, I suppose.

I think it would be much worse if (and perhaps this is actually what you mean when you suggest that in 10kd the band forced the "epic" card on us) the band became, as Adam has spoken about, a sub-par cover-band of itself.

stop stealing my posts

LOL. This is the first and last time I am ever going to look at what is going on in this thread

Doubt it...it will really blow up once some official news is posted

I believe that this tracklist would have made the album a little bit more cohesive:

Jambi
Vicarious
Lost Keys
Rosetta Stoned
The Pot
Wings
10,000 Days
Intension
RIT


I for one, love the album regardless and cannot wait for 2012.

That would be pretty interesting. A part of me really likes that, but also seems like the album really slows down towards the end.

That's what I like about that particular playlist: it starts out fast and heavy and then tapers off into slower, lighter; ending with the heaviness of RIT's climax, it seems fitting.

Yep, man, you've got me thinkin'! Seems like the track order really does make a difference.
Wonder, why couldn't they arrange the tracks in such a sense-making style as in Lateralus. Ticks in between of Lateralus and D/R/T kicks ass IMO!
I like the particular order you've made up. Especially "The Pot", retaining its chapter dividing role. Just after the abrupt, rhythmically broken ending of The Pot the repeating bell and Adam's arpeggio delicately raise the curtain of Wings... Why it's not in this way? Another HolyGift?

That's nice but this would be better discussed elsewhere, since this thread is about the upcoming album.

I'll plug my own tread.. http://toolnavy.com/showthread.php?t=119979

Track order isn't what makes me think that 10,000 Days is Tool's weakest album to date. I just don't like the songs as much as those on previous albums, and it definitely doesn't feel like one piece of work like Lateralus generally does.

id rather they not release anything if its going to be centered around maynard changing his style because he cant cut it anymore

i dont hear ozzy, elton john or mick jagger crying about their voice

10 song instrumental with maynard on synths fuck yeah

im still patiently waiting for danny careys drum jack-offery tour.

That statement implies nothing of future releases. Rather, "to date" means everything released until now. Which is true, because 10000 Days isn't better than any of their previous albums.

I like how people in this place state opinions as fact.

Which Tool albums do you think are worse than 10,000 Days, Ravenpig?

I like how people assume that anything said in a forum isn't an opinion.

Also, Undertow is worse than 10k Days.

Yea well, I like apples.


Let me first say that I just read your post right above mine, and that my previous post was not aimed directly at you. What I wrote does sound douche-bagish though, so my apologies.

That being said, "worse" than 10,000 Days is much to harsh, but I do not believe Opiate or Undertow to be at 10,000 Days level. Even after saying that, there are certain parts of Undertow that I don't think they EVER topped, Ænema and Lateralus included.

I think I can agree with this.