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Tool: 10,000 Days

14/10/11 || Smalley

Before you started whining about how Tool are a bunch of pretentious, cryptic, incomprehensible non-metallers, I’ll stop you by saying yes, they are metal. Progressive metal, so you’re never going to get short, grindcore-level heavy material from ‘em; if you demand that, grow up already. I admit, they are often pretentious and cryptic, but with how basically great they are as performers/songwriters, I can live with the occasional trippy-hippie nonsense; music is more about feeling than knowing anyway, and Tool’s music makes me feel more than enough to not care if I know what they’re singing about or not.

However, on the band’s fourth full-length, 2006’s “10,000 Days”, their attitude changed somewhat to become warmer, easier to empathize with, which was almost certainly brought on by the death of Judith Marie Keenan, the mother of Maynard, Tool’s frontman. In 1976, Judith suffered a stroke which confined her to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, an event that strengthened her already-strong faith in God. Understandably, Maynard found that very ironic, and attacked his mother’s choice in a song with his side-project, A Perfect Circle. However, Judith passed away in ’03, which I believe softened Maynard’s attitude toward his mom, and influenced the direction he took on “Days”; even its title was inspired by Judith, since the length of time between her stroke and her death was approximately 10,000 days.

But enough backstory, how about the music itself? “Days” starts off with “Vicarious”, a scathing indictment of the modern media’s “if it bleeds, it leads” attitude, and the hypocrisy of those in the public who condemn that style, but get also parasitically get off on it. So, yeah, pretty straightforward lyrics, but that directness gives a special cultural relevancy that Tool generally didn’t have beforehand, and as a prog metal single, “Vicarious” nicely balances the need for Tool to be, well, prog-y, with the need to have a track catchy and simple enough for radio-play. The way the whole band proves that they’re all still hella proficient on their instruments cements “Vicarious”‘s status as a very nice way to open up a record.

“Jambi” continues in that vein, albeit a little heavier, with relatively simple songwriting and understandable lyrics (this time about giving up material pleasures for a loved one), but an increased usage of spacey clean guitar and a big, sweet voice-box solo keeps things fresh. Then we get our first truly epic cut (though ironically, it’s shorter than the previous ones) with “Wings for Marie (Pt 1)”. I really like the serene, gradual build-up here, plus the lyrics praising Judith, but the subsequent climax feels insufficient and truncated, as if Tool couldn’t be arsed to properly pay off what they were building up to.

Even keeping in mind that following track “10,000 Days (wings pt 2)” leads off where part 1 ended, 1 still feels like a wasted track. Whatever, “pt 2” helps ease the pain with a more tense, ominous intro (complete with thunder claps), and a much longer, more cathartic climax, where Maynard proves why he earned that future spot on our non-existent Best Metal Singers list (full of my own choices, naturally). Beautiful, heartrending stuff. “The pot” then calls back to the indignant, pissed-off tones of “Ticks and leeches” and “Hooker with a penis”, and while it isn’t Tool’s most thoughtful song, it is fun to headbang to and get pissed along with Maynard as rails against some anonymous offender. You don’t need a real reason to get mad in today’s world after all, right?

Unfortunately, “Days” is about to go off rails for a while at this point; “Lipan conjuring” is an okay little interlude with Native American chanting, but “Lost keys (blame Hofmann)” is just 3 & 1/2 minutes of aimless, irritating guitar droning and cryptic dialogue, and “Rosetta stoned” (teehee) is 11 minutes of jumbled, acid trip-ranting (“Then the X-Files being/Looking like some kind of blue-green Jackie Chan/With Isabella Rossellini lips and breath that reeked of vanilla Chig Champa/Did a slow-mo Matrix descent/Outta the butt end of the banana vessel”), and while a few musical sections here are decent, overall this “song” is a big ‘ol fucken mess, and completely unsalvageable. Ugh.

Fortunately, “Days” does get back on track after that clusterfuck with the completely serene, atmospheric “Intension”, and while it’s a bit too laid-back to be called brilliant, it’s still far more preferable to what came just before. “Right in two” ramps the energy level way up with a dramatic, philosophical examination of mankind’s cycle of war, with a particularly powerful, tabla percussion-infused second half, and “Viginti tres” closes out the album with some aimless noise. Meh, no big deal.

I suspect that the generally more accessible nature of this album pushed Tool to try out that mid-section clusterfuck, but besides that sore point (and the closing track), “10,000 Days” is a compelling, well thought-out, and yes, surprisingly intimate slice of Tool. The somewhat less urgent, more relaxed atmosphere here means it doesn’t reach the soul-shattering heights of “Lateralus”, but I don’t like it when bands just make the same album over and over, so I still say “Days” is a necessary, welcome change of pace for Tool; here’s to Judith, guys. Now, hurry up with that next album??

Information
Released: 2006
Label: Volcano Entertainment
Website: www.toolband.com
Band
Maynard James Keenan: vocals
Adam Jones: guitar, sitar
Justin Chancellor: bass
Danny Carey: drums, tabla sampling, percussion

Tracklist
01. Vicarious
02. Jambi
03. Wings for Marie (Pt 1)
04. 10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)
05. The Pot
06. Lipan Conjuring
07. Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)
08. Rosetta Stoned
09. Intension
10. Right In Two
11. Viginti Tres

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