Takes the following.

1. about 10 solid listens, at least
2. headphones, few distractions
3. poison of your choice
4. time

so all you asshats making conclusions after one listen over your pc speakers sitting while surfing on tdn, can rightly shut the fuck up.

you arent ready to form any opinions yet.
I cant even count the amount of times ive hated a piece of music and grow to love it, you cant rush what Tool releases so sparingly for the sake of your predisposition that you will hate it.

give the record time and a lot of listens, then come back and form an opinon, because right now.....denouncing it, is laughable. This isnt a fucking 30 minute Good Charlotte album.

AGREED!!!

just get lost in the music... its defently a cd that thats you to another world..

a very different place... not evil, but not happy... its in between the cracks..

this album will grow on you the most

you will feel like your tripping if you can become connected to this album,.

Tool work so goddamn hard on their albums. I mean even Adam says in interviews that it is a goddamn excuciating process yet so rewarding to them when its finished and the music is out there (and...the ultimate reward is what we get to share with them in that music) that I almost think that their ultimate fear in stuff like this leaking is forming premature opinons and conclusions.

It took me a while to get into Lateralus.......and now its a complete classic in my eyes. And I kind of remember when I started to fall in love with that album. Not in some frenzied state of "ooo im hearing the leak" while sitting at a PC, no...it when I was sitting with the album, with the art, somewhere in a very comfortable state of mind, and giving it many listens over weeks, gradually I could start to understand parts of it, the lyrical themes, and appreciate the development I could hear in their music.

And I have no doubt listening to this album will be the same process, and fuck....I cant wait to listen to this record over and over and over. That's how you should treat a new Tool album, not this passive and all too quickly dismissive "im so disappointed" bullshit.

I couldn't agree more...all these noob TOOL fans (starting with Lateralus) don't understand the time it takes to "digest" new material. The problem I have with all these downloads of the leaked album is proving true. We have people who are giving reviews after a few play throughs.

I'm an old TOOL fan. I even saw them live before they were a headline act. They have NEVER followed the beaten path, and people who are reacting to this album negatively don't yet know what they're talking about. GIVE IT TIME!

Cheers to those who are waiting until May 2nd. The band appreciates it.

very well said, as i had such a similar experience...

i think the fuckknobs posting dismay are merely inexperienced, OR seeking shock value because thier poor little locus of evaluation exists miles outside of themselves.

bump

...it's a piece of shit!

i downloaded the album, although i'll hold off listening to it in it's entirety till may 2nd, when i'll have the actual album in my hands. simply because it'll be that much more amazing to listen to after waiting a tad longer.
i skipped through the tracks, overall listening time was about one minute i'd say. i got extremely hyped up over that minute of random parts of the songs.

unlike the rest of the album, i have listened to vicarious many upon many times after having downloaded that particular leak

better than past material? no. worse than past material? no. same as past material? no

it is definitely a change, which every album thus far has been. doesn't sound like anyone was hanging from the ceiling singing about submarines either.

it's really annoying listening to people whine about maynard's singing. maynard's vocals do in fact sound like APC at times, but he is one and the same person. for those who seem to not be able to accept this, i feel sorry for you. i cannot make sense of how god, jesus and the holy spirit are all one and the same being (this is one of the thousands of reasons that make me have no respect for the church), but goddamnit it's pretty easy to make a connection with APC and Tool!

i am fully confident that a few months after may 2nd - when i've listened to the album hundreds of times and the album's sunk in (after an awful lot of listening to vicarious i still feel far from being as familiar with it as i am with past material - good music should take a long time to settle in) - i will still enjoy it like i do all past material of tool's.

judging mainly vicarious (a few odd seconds of listening to the other songs are not enough to justify a legit comment, although they did seem to enforce this idea): the album seems to be very different in the sense that the guitar is much more evident in the construction of the material. as if adam really pushed himself to contribute more to the songs. his somewhat arrogant statement that he had formed tool, not maynard (guitar world) seems to in a sense support this idea. on the other hand, bass and drum work have likewise developed greatly. it could be that adam's developement has simply passed that stage where it's easy to spot improvement and make note of it.

if i could toss out one problem it would be simply that it seems as if the guitar's a little too dominant in the mix <- this is being picky. it's great that the vocals are kept level with instruments rather than being cranked, this is a definite plus because you hear them perfectly but you can still focus on the music in the background... unlike just about any band on tv/radio where there's simply nothing interesting going on in the background so vocals are cranked, and so you then don't feel disappointed about this extremely poor production aspect.

to conclude, for those complaining about maynard's vocals, go to church. for the rest, assuming your third eye's not closed, be prepared for another great album. if you're already listening to it, you should be enjoying it.

wtf

someone pm me so i can help flame this....

They never let you know what to expect. Awesome, I totally thought about Laterauls part 2...boy was i fucking wrong. TO all you dumb asses that thought that this was all a hoax : GET A LIFE! you will never be happy until you"re actually sucking the shit out of Maynard's ass and typing up how it tastes at the same time.
FLAME ON, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!

First off, I don't think the album is bad. It's pretty fun. Jambi being one of the best songs I've heard in a LONG time ...

But, after sitting with a buddy and dissecting the songs, I noticed a few things:

1. Tons of recycled riffs, sounds, atmospheres, whatever. You can literally go back to songs like THIRD EYE, DISPOSITION, EON BLUE, etc, and find the previous riffs.

2. No cohesiveness to the album WHATSOEVER.

Now, I think the reason for this is the switch to Joe as 'producer'.

I can totally see Joe coming in, trusting these accomplished musicians to guide their own sound, and letting Tool run free without direction. This isn't something, from what I've heard of him, that David Botrill would've done.

In the newsletters, chats, and infrequent TB.COM updates, the band suggested this was the recording process for most of the CD --- that Joe was just there to get the right sounds out of the right equipment.

Now, I'm not saying Joe isn't an amazingly talented producer ... but I can almost guarantee he had little to no say in the direction/make-up of the songs and the album itself.

And what you've got ... are songs that sound like they've been plucked out of time, since Tool's inception, and brought together for an album that reminds me of RADIOHEAD's AMNESIAC.

Again, I actually really like this CD a lot. But it's makeup is really jarring to my brain ... more-so than any other album I've heard in a long time.

I'm also not suggesting the album NEED BE a theme album ... no tool albums have been ... but they have sounded, generally speaking, cohesive and together while in the company of themselves.

Anyways ... any opinions on this 'theory' of sorts?

Upon first listen to this album, I can see something I have never seen in Tool before. It is incredible. I am now listening to it for the second time. Tonight I will have it on repeat for the whole night. I will also go to sleep listening to it on repeat so maybe I dream something strange while listening to it. If this album has done this to me after only one and a bit listens, I cant wait till a few weeks time when it has started to digest at least a little bit... then a year, when I start to understand.....

I think the similarities are purposeful. Any suggestions that this is "not progressive" of a move, should dig further.

Many things make sense. Listen on several different systems. Listen several times over. I dont think its fair to say ANY tool album is better than another. Whats interesting to this album is that it CONTEXTUALIZES while sounding different.

Including myself....

If you are a true fan still buy the album.

Just wanted to share that. Flame if you will but i do belive in supporting. They Deserve it!

So far, I've listened to the album 8 times over, through.
It clicks more each time.

But with each listen, I hear more of their old work.
So I doubt listening more is going to make me realize the progression involved in the regressive practices of recycling.

Tool has always written all their songs themselves the producers dont tell them what to write or how to sound their just their like joe to get the good sounds but always bitch and want a producer title for a record when all they did was engineer the sound. thats it. period.

i guarantee you, 95 percent of the people here WILL buy the album.

mate, all I have done is just borrowed 30$ from the band, and I do plan on paying it back.

I've purchased every tool album multiple times and this one will be no different

Yeah so far i havent seen anyone saying "man this album kicks ass....but fuck tool, i aint buying it"....very good response so far

BS.

Producers have influence, regardless of what Tool wants to say.

LISTEN to David's work --- in TOOL and elsewhere. The influence is as apparent as Bob EZRIN's magic productions.

Even MASSEY had a sound her own.

Thats because the goddamn producer does the sound not the fucking songs. Tool makes the songs sound the way they sound by writing them that way the producer just has different takes on how to record them and make it sound production wise not song wise and even then im sure tool didnt sit back and let him have total control if they didnt like how something sounded then they would change it.

You're pretty gullible if you really believe that's the extent of a producers influence.

Period.

I was waiting...

...hesitating if you will.

But I SAID IT.

It's FUNKY, it's fucking spacey, it's fucking riffy...

9.5 out of 10.

This is what Lateralus should've been.

Fuck that.

But seriously, buy the album. I think I might buy 2 copies just for the sake of buying the album.

i thought lateralus put you in a different zone.... this one is farther out there

not as spiritual as lateralus but defently holds up spiritual vibes in a much harder and aggressive way...

like disposition as heavy rock song..lol

the interludes are amazing

haha maybe for poppy bands he writes the songs for but with a band like tool if you even read the guitar world issue with adam he says we write all our stuff before we go in and we allways produce the album ourselves. Adam even said in one of the chats he didnt think much of david bottril. Im a producer myself, musician, and have done engineering on local projects, yes there is a difference im sorry you have no musical talent or experience in the music business to know shit. please stfu.

Yeah the headphones part is the best, you can hear so much detal when you hear nothing but the song

This is by far the greatest Tool release to date, and possibly one of the greatest rock releases of all time.

There is no "low point"... everything connects perfectly.

This album really pushes the envelope. (No pun intended)

Its amazing how each persons taste differ on such an extreme level. Alot of my friends who were huge Tool fans before Lateralus did not like Lateralus. But it seems that nearly everyone on this board thinks Lateralus was the best Tool album to date(before 10,000 days). Now some people are on here talking about how they are disappointed with this album while others are blown away by it.

Track 4 (10000 days wings pt2) 5 min or so in "it's time now, it's my time now" it just has this incredible rythem that brought a big smile to my face.

I think there is a definite split between aenima and lateralus fans with aenima fans liking 10000 days. Good shit.

i think lateralus hit a peak for that type of sound, there is no way they could have made a better album in the same vain as lateralus, but they went and reinvented their style in an experimental new way and it's just unbelievable!!! these guys are brilliant, it's a great album in its own right and you can't say its purely derivative from anything they've done before... and so yes i think this is possibly their greatest work

Honestly man, how am I expected to take anything you say seriously when you can barely communicate?

Learn to speak/write English in a more coherant way and maybe then I will take your opinions [let alone, claims of talent/position in industry] more seriously.

As of right now, your opinion is pretty much null and void.

After Aenima, I have never expected any Tool album to sound the same. I didnt expect this to sound like it does. That is the beauty of Tool. This album i beautiful.

how can u judge off a random minute of each song....

you are a shame to tool fans... now leave

I'm more of a Lateralus fan but that doesnt mean i dont like Aenima. I just wish the vocals were louder on this album, half the time i cant hear what hes saying.

<3 tool

You are a noob so shut the fuck up.

We now have to deal with the Live DVD.