Advantages: Amazing ablum and band Disadvantages: Nothing
After the success of Tool’s 1993 debut album “Undertow”, the band was already receiving acclaim for the live stint on the third annual Lollapalooza festival and for their disturbing music videos for the songs “Sober” and “Prison Sex”. When it came time to record their sophomore effort “Aenima”, bassist Paul D’Amour left the band and was replaced by Englishman Justin Chancellor. When the band recruited David Botrill, the band wanted to broaden their progressive-metal sound to newer heights that most bands wouldn’t have done when it came to make a second album. Whereas most groups try to make a second album that was more accessible or stick to the formula that made their first album great, Tool didn’t do any of those things. Instead, they went to darker and more melodic territories to set the “Aenima” album further apart from their debut ...
drew_greenday666 18.12.2002
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Aenima - Tool
Advantages: This is Tool Disadvantages: May be disturbing to some...
In the words of Mr Maynard James Keenan himself,
'F*ck Smiley Gladhands with hidden agendas'
If there's one thing Tool are not, it's fake. If there're two things Tool are not, they're not fake or stupid...
There's alot of controversy amongst Tool fans as to which exactly is the best album. There's alot of controversy among Tool fans as to which is the best song on any of these albums. There's no controversy at all as to the quality of any of Tool's material. It's all genius.
My first experience of Aenima (but not Tool, having owned Lateralus for a good 6 months) was at a party some 5 weeks ago. Getting on for midnight, a group of us were gathered in the ridiculously deep sofas and dim lights of the front room, relaxing, chatting, and trying to avoid any of the manic vomiting that was going on elsewhere. Enter several girls who ...
Dream_weaver 18.06.2002
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Aenima - Tool
Advantages: Complex, original, amazing rock music with a difference. Disadvantages: Takes a while to fully appreciate. Not to everyone’s tastes. Grrrr those four silly tracks!
There is a sure fire way to forget about the commercially manufactured abomination that is the charts and there is a way to forget about bandwagon hitchhikers that claim to be making ‘alternative’ music. The way to do this is to sit down with a Tool album in your stereo and listen to it with your ears...
Aenima is the third album by Tool (following on from Opiate and Undertow). Like all their albums it is complex, sincere, difficult to categorise, and of course is amazing... Tool are defiantly anti-commercial. They do not release singles and they do not personally appear in their own videos (the videos are always really cool animations that have been worked on by a member of the band). The band like to remain fairly anonymous by avoiding personal talk in interviews and the vocalist (Maynard James Keenan) has a constantly ...
tendril- 26.06.2001
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Aenima - Tool
Tool: Maynard James Keenan (vocals); Adam Jones (guitar); Justin Chancellor (bass); Danny Carey (drums). Additional personnel includes: Marko Fox (vocals); Eban Schletter (organ); Chris Pittman (synthesizer); D.B. (keyboards); Bill Hicks. Recorded at Ocean Way, Hollywood, California and The Hook, North Hollywood, California. AENIMA was nominated for a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Recording Package. "Aenima" won the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance. On its second full-length album, this hard-rocking quartet delivers 15 tracks of unrelenting aggression and focused intensity. Rather than overwhelm with huge sonic washes of guitar and booming drums, Tool employs a propulsive, snaky approach that makes use of undulating rhythms and clipped, percussive guitar riffs. Maynard James Keenan's vocals follow suit, opting for a heavily processed slow burn instead of the post-grunge bellow favored by so many hard-rock bands. Instead of flailing uncontrollably in all directions, the group's raw, energetic sound is tightly directed for maximum impact. On songs like "Stinkfist," Keenan rails against injustice while the band churns mercilessly behind him. There is very little humor or light in Tool's worldview (except for song titles like "Hooker With A Penis"); these are songs of painstakingly articulated angst, and they are delivered in an earnest, deadpan manner. These fierce rockers are dead set on making their point, and make it they do, with all the bloodshed and carnage that entails.
Album Reviews
Rolling Stone (12/26/96, p.190) - "...Tool shove their iron-spike riffing and shock-therapy polemics right up the claustrophobic dead end of so-called alternative metal....the broiling, avant-metal ferocity of Led Zeppelin's PRESCENCE..." Entertainment Weekly (10/04/96, p.62) - "...a jagged, brooding nightmare filled with roaring guitars, abrupt rhythm shifts, and jarring sound effects. One of 1996's strangest and strongest alt-metal records." - Rating: A- Alternative Press (1/97, p.84) - 3 (out of 5) - "...The taut playing and icy production keep Keenan's emo tendencies in check while lending his vocals a sense of remote, lone-voice-in-the-machinery existentialism that Tool captures better than anyone..."
Titles on disc 1
1.
Stinkfist
2.
Eulogy
3.
H
4.
Useful Idiot
5.
Forty Six And 2
6.
Message To Harry Manback
7.
Hooker With A Penis
8.
Intermission
9.
Jimmy
10.
Die Eier Von Satan
11.
Pushit
Ciao
Listed on Ciao since
12/04/2005
Compare Aenima - Tool to other similar Hardcore, Punk & Heavy Metal »
![Greatest Hits Vol.1 (Parental Advisory) [PA] - Korn](http://imagesb.ciao.com/iuk/images/products/small/605/prod_small-5878605.jpg)
![Poison, The [ECD] - Bullet For My Valentine](http://imagesb.ciao.com/iuk/images/products/small/771/prod_small-6344771.jpg)
