Album Reviews
Tool: 10,000 Days
The anticipation and expectation with every Tool release is so great that it sometimes takes a while to let the album sink in to see it for what it really is. There is such an enigmatic quality to the band that every song, every album, every video is dissected and discussed ad infinitum by their fans and I admit to be one of them.
The album begins with “Vicarious” or as I like to call it “Schism part 2″, questioning reality TV and its effects, a subject Maynard James Keenan (singer, lyricist) wrote about with greater ambiguity on “Stinkfist”. “Jambi” is archetypal Tool but you can’t help feel that there’s something missing, that it’s too formulaic. The album truly starts for me with “Wings for Marie” (parts 1 and 2) — a touching song about Maynard’s deceased mother Judith Marie who suffered a stroke and was paralysed for 27 years, which makes approximately 10,000 Days. Where, once Maynard must have felt anger to see his mother in her paralysed state (see “Judith” by A Perfect Circle), here he seeks redemption — “Set as I am in my ways and my arrogance / Burden of proof tossed upon non-believers / You were my witness, my eyes, my evidence / Judith Marie, unconditional one”.
The album truly starts for me with “Wings for Marie” (parts 1 and 2) — a touching song about Maynard’s deceased mother Judith Marie who suffered a stroke and was paralysed for 27 years, which makes approximately 10,000 Days.
When I first heard “The Pot”, I thought it was a fake because Maynard sounds so nasal but Justin Chancellor’s trademark bass line is unmistakable. “Lipan Conjuring”, an Apache Indian chant -– not the Bhangra pop artist -– is the obligatory filler and bring us to the psychedelic “Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)” where a nurse and doctor try to get a patient high on acid to talk — and the patient starts talking about his trip in “Rosetta Stoned” –- you could say it’s the “Third Eye” of this album replete with all of Tool’s best ingredients. “Intension” is basically a chance for Danny Carey to play tabla, but the beat he plays on some sort of electronic drums in the latter part of the song that sounds more interesting. “Right in Two” talks how us silly monkeys fight and kill each other; this song is reminiscent of “Disposition–Reflection–Triad”. The album ends with five minutes of random noise with “Viginti Tres” which is Latin for 23, and is sure to have some sort of significance with the album’s meaning.
It’s not that ‘10,000 Days’ fails to live up to the lofty heights of ‘Ænima’ and ‘Lateralus’ – it would be grossly unfair to expect that — but did it really take them five years to come up with this? ‘10,000 Days’ sounds like a rehashed version of those two landmark albums minus the philosophical lyrics and mystical imagery, dead-pan humour and constructively directed anger. ‘10,000 Days’ sounds like… uh, well, Tool-lite. [Volcano; 2006]
Its hard to compare Tool albums with one another as they are all so unique and well-rounded. Though it took 5 years to come out(and I do agree thats a LONG time to wait), I think the intricicies of the music itself well proves how this group goes beyond limits to share their music with the world. The extension of Maynard’s voice on ‘The Pot’, the way Adam Jones’s strumming comes alive on ‘Jambi’, and the union of Chancellor and Carey’s rhythem throughout the album makes this band and this album some of the best music we will all come across in our generation…..
Great review.
But, in my opinion Stinkfist is about drug abuse, not about violence on TV. Cheers.
the best release of 2006
Still feel album was as good as Lateralus and Aenima. And as far as the lyrics go, Maynard’s given us something to think about once again.
As a die hard (or living free :) ) Tool fan, I must say that this is the most pathetic under-researched album review ever written in the history of mankind. Firstly, do not ever compare one tool album with the next. “rehashed version” ? dude! i think it would do you a lot of good to stop listening to tool once and for all.
Vicarious, the word, means to experience on someone else’s behalf. It is about how we as a race, stay glued to the television when we watch death and the resulting grief. it’s about preferring to pretend to shed a tear, when all we’re actually doing is feeding this need within us to watch our fellow man suffer and die.
Jambi is the first ever ‘love song’ by Tool (in my humble opinion). A lot of fans claim Maynard has written it keeping his son Devo (the psychedelic baby scream echo in Cesaro Summability from Aenima) in mind, but that need not be the case. The song is also set to a 9 beat riff, which is super complicated and simultaneously beautiful, and blended so well with the overall theme of the song. And the crescendo about the benevolent sun is something very unlike Tool’s typical f.t.world attitude, but it really made me cry the first time I heard it.
I’ll give you some credit for finding out a bit more about Judith Marie (but then again, pasting four lines of lyrics from the song in an album review is not done dude) and your views on Wings for Marie Pt. I and II can be accepted (with some grudge).
The pot is about how we pass judgements on anything and everything we encounter, like boy bands, bollywood etc., and how these judgements can actually be something as simple as mockery (serious tripping :) ) but at the same time can be something that traps us in our own opinions. And the less accepting we are, the more sad our lives become, even though we may feel lofty.
To actually see ‘Rosetta Stoned’ in a different light, go read about ‘The Rosetta Stone’ on Wikipedia, and go through the lyrics. It’s not about a patient talking about his trip (man, I really wish..)
‘Intension’ and ‘Right in Two’ are again an epic pair. While intension, I believe, is speaking about how we are involved in the purity of life right from the beginning, and how we gradually subdue our energies and end up wasting our time fighting these internal battles when we may express our connectedness to the world around us more effectively. Right in two is about the two sides of the emotional coin, grief and anger, and about how we can choose to react to all this war and killing around us by crying about it, or, participate, take a side and actually help the battle continue. again, here is where Tool sticks to its central idea that we should think for ourselves and not be ruled by what society tells us to think. on a lighter note, perhaps Maynard was remembering his days in the army and getting a bit nostalgic about some military exercises :)
Tool is very mathematical in all aspects of there songs making them technical. However you can not deny the progression through the years this album has a different from those released in past years. The blend of eastern influences is new to Tool and to the genera as a whole.