AEnima

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 album. What Tool did was make on one of the best hard rock albums of the 1990s that broke more rules on how to rock harder with a much darker sensibility.

“Message To Harry Manback” is a weird tune of a man talking to a man called Harry Manback backed by an ambient guitar background from Adam Jones that serves as a weirdness to the band. “Hooker With A Penis” is a powerful hard-rock song filled by powerful drums from Danny Carey, brutal guitar charges from Adam Jones, and ferocious screams from Maynard James Keenan who can probably scream the hell out of such current divas like Mariah Carey (no relations to Tool’s drummer), Christina Aguilera, and Jessica Simpson. That man is wreaked with awesomeness. The next track is a break in the middle of the album titled “Intermission” which features a weird circus-like organ sound that shows Tool’s funny side. Pretty cool intermission. Next is the melodic-power of “jimmy” dominated by Chancellor’s melodic bass-riffs, Carey’s brilliant drum-power, Jones’ guitar grooves, and Keenan’s hypnotic vocals. “Die Eier Von Satan” (or in translation from German to English, “The Eggs/Balls of Satan”), is a weird industrial-like tune with distorted bass riffs and percussion sounds, hard-driven guitar hooks, and vocals by Marko Fox singing in German with Gudrun Fox translating in English.

“(-) Ions” is a four-minute instrumental track of atmospheric sounds and electrical sparks in the background that serves as an intro the final track of the album called “Third Eye”. The thirteen-minute song “Third Eye” starts off with a sample of comedian Bill Hicks talking the good things about drugs and saying that all the best rock albums were made on drugs. During Hicks’ talks on drugs, Tool comes in with a powerful, blistering song with intense drumming from Carey, guitar grooves from Jones, and Keenan’s powerful vocals who screams in the fourth minute of the song. After four minutes, a huge instrumental part comes in from Jones, Chancellor, and Carey comes in for about a few minutes then there’s a quiet break during the eighth minute part of the song until things get loud again by Keenan’s ferocious vocals who screams like a madman backed by the rest of the band’s powerful instrument assaults.