This album and Opiate are like straight up heavy metal perfection. The songs arent that long. There isnt really any expirimentalism with strange sounds. The songs are all comprises of brilliant rock riffs.
It's just straight up rock and roll.
Aenema is when they started expirimenting in progressing and sonic exploreation which culminates in lateralis and 10k days.
But these first 2 albums are just bare bones verse chorus verse chorus metal beauty.
Yeah I agree. I really think they just progressed as they "grew" up I guess. The themes in Opiate and Undertow reflect that. The albums post Undertow all contain more complex themes like transcendence and things.
Undertow was a nessesary step towards Tool's progression. That's what I think of it. It's not really that good an album (start throwing knifes at me), and what basically bothers me is the way the songs blend. The extreme distinctiveness of the album's sound results in it becoming a repetitive riff-mongering, which ends up to be a monotonous thing. It's way too edgy and kickass, of course, like an overgrown, humongous Opiate. There are times when the album seems to lose itself crawling in its own swampish murk, recycling the anger. Lyrically, Undertow is a lavatory; Maynard just vents all the shit in his head and soul through powerful, almost fearsome lyrics (Crawl Away), be it either uncomromising, nu metal swearing (Swamp Song), or more esoterical and personal wordcraft (Flood). Prison Sex and Sober. the more sophisticated moments of Undertow, the ones that most closely resemble Tool's later efforts, are perhaps the best tracks you'll find, and along with Bottom and Undertow the most inspired. By no way Undertow is a bad album, espesially when you realize that it was what led to such masterpieces as AEnima and Lateralus. That said, my view of Undertow is Tool's artistic adolescence, the landmark record on which one cycle was over, and a new one, that of maturity, was due to begin.
This album and Opiate are like straight up heavy metal perfection.
For me, Metallica is heavy metal perfection, Undertow is better compared with other Alternative Metal bands. Its not perfection, but I think there´s more to it than straight heavy metal, and some songs are brilliant in their own unique way. Swamp Song is a fine example of this.
Dude, metallica is NOT heavy metal perfection! Have you ever heard them live? Lars cannot keep a rythm, especially when he tries to play double bass. Master of puppetts is a great album, but if they play it live the drums sound like shit.
This thread is about the construction of the songs rather than the performing skills of the band members. Metallica can build long and effective songs, like The Call Of Ktulu out of very simple guitar riffs. Tool may be the better band, but as far as conventional heavy metal goes...
sorry for getting off topic, but it annoys me when people say that metallica is perfect. Zarathustra is right, the first 2 are more straight forward than the others. It is because they have matured, no one will sound the same after almost 15 years.
