So, a buddy of mine tracked down the new Tool, "10,000 Days," about 13 minutes (!!!) after it first leaked, and I've been listening to it driving to and from work since.
It took me about two days to really "get" the album - initially, I was a little dissapointed because in the wake of their Meshuggah tour, rumours had been going around saying that the Mesh guys got Adam Jones into seven string guitars and increasingly complex, heavy polyrhythmic riffing, and that the new album was going to be seriously heavy and complex. This isn't really the case - there are plenty of bits that I still haven't quite managed to count out, and it's heavy, but overall if it's heavier/more complex than "Lateralus," it's only marginally so. And "Vicarious," the first single, struck me as incredibly rhythmically direct, uncharacteristically so for a band I'd always admired for their rhythmic subtlety (it took me probably two years to really "get" "The Grudge," and that was only after someone pointed out some of the references to the phases of saturn and how it tied into the time signature and some of the lyrics.
However, the more I listen, the more what I'm hearing begins to sink in, and god DAMN this is good. There's a lot of ambient, spacey soundscape stuff going on here, but there's also some really great direct hard-hitting music, and some that walks the line between the two. And the title track, now that I've worked out a portion of the lyrics, strikes me as the best thing Maynard has written yet. Near as I can tell, while it's apparently another song about Maynard's mother, it's drawing imagery from a depiction of Christ as an unwilling, outraged martyr. The final whispered stanza in the outro is positively haunting. "Daylight fades, leaving cold florescence. It's getting hard to see you in this light. Please forgive this bold suggestion, if you should see your maker's face tonight. Look him in the eyes, look him in the eyes and tell him, that I never lived a lie, never took a life that should be sacred. Howling (?) all the way out, it's time for me to come home..."
There are two other standout cuts, IMO - "The Pot" (which features a vocal from Maynard that's a complete departure from anything he's ever done, some awesome riffing, and a bridge breakdown that I can't even begin to follow but sounds badass), and "Right in Two," another religious-toned song (Tool gets painted as satanists a lot, but that's a gross oversimplification, I think - it's been my experience that a lot of so-called athiests have a lot fresher and more interesting things to say about than the church themselves, and in particular here I'm thinking of Albert Camus's passing depiction of the greater tragedy of Christ in "The Fall") about the host of angels watching first in amusement and then in greater and greater horror after god grants them free will - a slow, tabla-and-clean-guitar driven dirge that again is somewhat of a departure for the band.
This is a GREAT album, IMO, and while it's tough to say if it's better than "Lateralus" just yet it's certainly a fitting followup, and I'll definitely be there in line for a copy the day it comes out.
It's certainly different, but i like it
btw, it came out here today so I BOUGHT it (after hearing the leak!)
its great !
the first tool record i liked the whole through.
So, I picked up my copy after work last night, and I have to add that the packing of this CD, as you would expect of Tool, is SERIOUSLY cool. \m/
I just picked it up today, I listened to it 3 times and I like it, I wasn't expecting much more than what they did on Lateralis which I like too but I still think 10,000 Days and Lateralis are nowhere nears Aenima or Undertow, great album none the less, maybe I have to listen to it more......B)
I got it too, and I also found a couple new boots also
1. live in El Indio, Ca. 4.30.06 the first 10,000 Days show !
2. and Seattle 5.2.06 BOTH KILLER SOUND.
Look on boot sites for them, they are awesome.
I saw TOOL last in L.A. at the Forum 7.15.02 and also 7.11.02 front row in Bakersfield, Ca.
I will never forget how killer those shows were.
J.