What does good ol' Mark Prindle have to say?

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America's Tool is a much-respected heavy metal band containing such lasting figures as guitarist Adam Jones, extraordinarily gifted drummer Danny Carey, bassist Justin Chancellor (who replaced original bassist Paul Of'Love) and hilarious black comedian Maynard Keenan Wyans. The band plays a tremendously heavy, at times funky, at other times industrial, at most times boring set of up-down-up-down two- or three-chord combinations in most of their songs, but augments them with exceedingly tight rhythms, melodic vocals and lots of artsy quiet parts (so you have to keep turning your stereo volume up and down and up and down - almost as if you're performing one of the band's riffs!). Their lyrics are generally as negative as my assessment of their music, whether they be threatening rape or making bold, revolutionary statements like 'Christianity is bad.' I wouldn’t argue that the band "sucks out loud" -- the music is far too taut, technical and well-performed for outright dismissal. I just personally can't get into them because no matter how much concern and exertion the band and its producers put into the *sound* of each song, the riffs themselves seem to be based on a big block of air. In other words, if you sit down to play a Tool song on your acoustic guitar, you'll more than likely find yourself (a) playing a mid-80s Megadeth-style bass line or (b) alternating between two or three tedious barre chords that are right next to each other. The band is too slow to kick ass and too melodically limited to excite my pleasure centers (which reminds me - Come excite your penis at Mark's Pleasure Center!). They're friends with the Melvins though and a couple of them love Neil Hamburger, so they can't be all bad! Their ALBUMS can, though. Yecch! Say, did you enjoy that "Yecch!"? Didn't it feel like you were reading Mad magazine for a minute there? Oh, it didn't? Well, "What? Me Worry About You?" Heh heh. Good old Albert E. Neuman.

Whether you love 'em or hate 'em, Prindle's Tool page is a hoot to read, especially the epic 'Reader Comments' bits!

Mark Prindle reviews Tool.

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I love tool but I haven't really listened to them in years. They were my first real concert, and they are probably the band that got me really "into" music.

My fav album of theirs is definitely Lateralus, but my favorite track is from Salival. The softer version of Pushit is unreal.

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They're really known for having unusual time signatures in their music, and also shifting between time signatures more than once in a particular song. When listening to one of their songs for the first time, it makes it very difficult to anticipate a low or high part of the song with constant shifting of the time signature. Pretty cool how they can do that and still keep their songs coherent.

EDIT: Here's a quote taken from wikipedia about the song 'Schism'

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Song Meter A possible analysis of the meter changes is found in the August 2001 issue of Guitar One magazine. As transcribed by Adam Perlmutter, the song starts in 5/4 for one measure followed by 21 measures of 6/4 (or 5/8 and 7/8 alternating), up to the first interlude, which is a bar of 3/8, three bars of 13/8, and a bar of 10/8. (This can be also interpreted as four 13/8 bars, but played with a 3/8 upbeat.) The next verse is eight bars of 6/4 followed by another interlude that fits the same pattern as the first. The next section is four bars of 6/4 followed by one bar of 11/8. Another eight-bar verse in 6/4 follows, with an interlude containing the same as before, except the final 10/8 bar is replaced with an 11/8 bar setting up the middle section, which is four bars of 7/4 before settling into a pattern of alternating 12/8 and 15/8, one bar each, twelve times. Following this, there are three bars of 4/4, a bar of 2/4, and four bars of 4/4 setting up another section, which is two bars of 9/8 followed by a bar of 10/8, that pattern again, a single bar of 9/8 followed by a 13/8 bar. This leads to an alternating set of 9/8 and 5/8, appearing four times before a bar of 9/8 and a bar of 6/8. Near the end, there is a 6/4 meter for eight bars, followed by eight bars of 4/4 to end the song. In all, the song changes meters 47 times. The band has jokingly said that the song is in "6.5/8".

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Last edited by cmay119 on Apr-23-2009 at 19:47

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Originally posted by woscar Awesome band. Not only the drummer is amazing, pretty much everyone in Tool is extremely talented both in the composition and the execution side. My favorite Tool moment is probably Parabol/Parabola in Lateralus. Fucking bliss.

+100000
specially the bassist, he's out of this world.
and i sing to parabol/parabola at least 5 times a day, it's that good of a song.

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colonelcrisp i bust my ass for the money i make ******** Oh so you are a male prostitute? That is such hard work taking dick? Now your ass can match your mouth.

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Originally posted by palm All their albums rock except Undertow which somehow sounds really old. I dont know what it is but Im thinking they changed the drummer. Lateralus being my favorit album with The Grudge as my favorit track. Some awesome guitar riffs around and some hot drumming, 5/4 rhytm etc really interesting.

Really?

While I agree Lateralus is their best work, for me Undertow was what started it all. I think it's also a brilliant piece of work in its own right.

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Originally posted by cmay119 EDIT: Here's a quote taken from wikipedia about the song 'Schism'

LOL, I gave up reading after the second verse

But yeah, you're absolutely right about the constant shifting of time signatures. It's pretty much one of their trademarks.

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