The Academic Conversation

Ahhhh…. Tool. Describe them how you will: the greatest progressive rock band to ever cross this Earth, or a perfect example of how the nu metal genre can vary so much. I choose to accept the latter, but you know, do you. For those not familiar with Tool, the group is comprised of just four musical geniuses, who create one of the most complex sounds in the industry of music. While 99% of groups use the standard 4/4 meter throughout all their music, Tool has never used this meter, and chooses instead to change the rhythm and meter multiple times in each song. But somehow, each instrument and the vocals come together to create one of the most pleasurable sounds I have ever heard in my life.

While not participating in the rapping parts of nu metal, Tool uses their vocals, to whisper, clean sing, and even growl and yell in some parts, but by far not anything like the growling and yelling of screamo bands or even death metal or Slipknot. Just plain and simply, yelling. So before we go making any judgements about how this doesn’t fit into the rest of the blog, lets become familiar with the Tool sound.

Tool’s Lateralus is quite often regarded as the most prominent album in the progressive rock genre ever. It is also described as the most creative and most innovative nu metal album, because of the complexity of the instruments, meter, rhythm, and vocals. Not only that, but Tool infuses the Fibonacci Sequence into many of the songs in the album, such as the number of syllables in a line of lyrics, or drum beats per measure, giving staunch credit as to how much of a genius group of songwriters Tool is. While incorporating this sequence into the music, Tool is still able to focus heavily on the theme of the album: the stages in the downfall of a relationship. Each song is something different, like “The Grudge,” which describes the beginning of the ending phase of the speaker’s relationship. In “Lateralus,” the title track, the speaker describes how he is trying to forget the breakup that occurred previously in the song “Schism” and take what he can from it and move on with his life. Then, “Parabola” describes the beginning of a relationship with a holy entity after the breakup in “Schism” as a ways and means to accept the end of their relationship and describes how we are not alone in spirit because of a relationship with this entity.

Tool seems to place themselves into a very prominent stance on relationships as a whole throughout the album: in the end, all relationships are positive. That being a successful romantic relationship, or a negative one as long as something is learned and emotional/spiritual growth occur from it. Even that of a platonic relationship is positive, as friends and family are there for support and can, once again, lead to a personal growth.

Take the negative relationship for example, in the first track on the album, titled “The Grudge,” where vocalist Maynard James Keenan starts off saying “Calculate what we will or will not tolerate. Desperate to control all and everything, unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.” Keenan focuses in on the negative of the relationship, even referencing The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne, suggesting that the speaker discovered their significant other was having an affair, and that he would not forgive her. Then, near the end of the song, Maynard leaves the proposition of either letting the relationship end in negativity or taking from it when he says “… you choose what you will not see and then drags you down like a stone or lifts you up again,” and then “Give away the stone. Let the oceans take and trans mutate this cold and fated anchor.” Here Keenan specifically states to let go of the negativity and focus on what one could take from the relationship and how to grow from it.

My favorite Tool song and arguably their most popular song is titled “Schism.” In “Schism,” the relationship described in “The Grudge” has finally come to an end, and this song describes the breakup stage of their relationship. This song could be taken in several ways, and the way that I choose to view it is as what is going through the speaker’s mind during the breakup conversation. He says “I know the pieces fit ‘cause I watched them fall away,” meaning that he knew they were right for each other because of the complexity of how their relationship disintegrated. Keenan states that even though there was “no fault” that he “it doesn’t mean [he doesn’t] desire to point the finger, [and] blame the other.” Going back to “The Grudge,” the speaker seems to think that although he wants to blame the girl for cheating on him, he sees the breakup as no one’s fault possibly because he saw that he ended up driving her away and the breakup was just as much his fault as it was hers. This sense of driving her away is supported when Maynard says one of my favorite lines “Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers,” followed by what seems to be an extremely apologetic and maybe even hopeful muttering of “I know the pieces fit” to end the song. The speaker lets it known that it was in turn his fault for the end of the relationship because he never wanted to talk about it, but left the breakup with the hope of possibly rekindling the relationship in the future.

The same position on taking the positive from the negative is revisited in the title track “Lateralus.” Keenan empathetically and emotionally sings the lyrics “Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind,” and “Reaching out to embrace the random. Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.” The speaker seems to have finally come to terms with the end of the relationship in “Schism” and is ready to move on to the next step in his life. He “…embrace[s] [his] desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside…” signaling his readiness to put the past behind and only look towards the future.

The song “Parabola” seems to fit into the same category as “Lateralus” as he is seen to try and move on and find other ways to cope with the breakup. He is seen to look towards a god to give him a meaning to life and is shown to find it. Keenan almost screams the chorus “In this holy reality, in this holy experience. Choosing to be here in this body, this body holding me. Be my reminder here that I am not alone…” The speaker says that even though he seems to be lost without his counterpart, he still has a reason to live and continue his life, even if it means accepting this entity to be his guiding source. The song’s final verse is powerful when Keenan, almost whispering, softly sings “This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality. Embrace this moment. Remember. We are eternal. All this pain is an illusion.” Just like in “The Grudge,” Keenan makes us remember about the positives in the negative, and not giving up, but moving forward, and that our body and the pain we have is just an illusion, and our spirits will remain unscathed through the breakup.

Tool’s stance on remaining positive through a negative event is inspiring. Throught Keenan’s impressive vocals, and the jaw-dropping instrumentation, it seems as if each member of Tool went through the same things described in the album and the message is being conveyed in the utmost personal way. The album is felt as an emotional rollercoaster, going through the feelings of hate, anger, depression, disparity, and finally, hope. The album touches us because no matter our current relationship status, we have all had that one horrible relationship that left us sad and took a while to get over, and even possibly changed us as a person. Combine that personal touch with the fact that somehow they incorporated one of mathematics most complex sequences into their music, and you get one hell of an album. I mean, if you were to take just one of the songs off the album and compare it to anything else in the nu metal genre, or even anything else that came out in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Tool definitely set themselves apart from the rest of the music industry with this album.

To reiterate, Tool is one of the greatest bands on the face of the planet. Their almost weird music style and Keenan’s haunting and ghostly vocals, are just plain different. But somehow, they combine this aloof style with something every human being has undergone, a bad breakup, and make Lateralus a piece of art that everybody can relate to and enjoy. Their message is true, their message is deep, and their message is full of hope: Never look down, always find the light in the dark, and never ever give up.