tool / Awesome Music

Undertow

Sober, with Maynard's pained delivery, makes for a great introductory point into the band.
Prison Sex is an absolutely bone-chilling and haunting take on child abuse and molestation, especially given Adam's first hand experience...

The opening track, Stinkfist, very cleverly uses fingering as a metaphor for complacency growing as we try to stimulate ourselves more and more.
The (almost) title track Ænema is a vicious Take That! to the city of Los Angeles with its Shout-Out to comedian Bill Hicks' Arizona Bay routine and complete evisceration of the frivolous nature of the middle class lifestyle.
Hooker With A Penis is a hilariously blatant instance of The Man Is Sticking It to the Man that has Maynard taking the piss out of anyone that thinks the band is actively fighting the system, all while doling out a fiery Cluster F-Bomb.
Tool isn't known for producing Tear Jerkers, but they manage to pull it off with H, containing lyrics about complacency with a clearly abusive relationship.
Forty Six & 2, a song about evolution and Jungian philosophy, kicks major ass.
Album closer Third Eye opens with another Bill Hicks routine and then talks about taking psychedelic drugs to try to force a spiritual awakening within the user, and it serves well as a taste of what's to come on the next album.

Maynard manages to belt out a 24 second long Metal Scream in the opening track The Grudge. It has to be heard to be believed.
Schism is the band flexing their proficiency with uncommon time signatures, seeing as the main riff of the song alternates between 5/8 and 7/8, all while managing to not lose the listener in the process.
The title track and Siamese Twin Songs Parabol and Parabola are the band's official declarations of transcendentalism (starting to notice a pattern?), but worth noting about the former is its use of the Fibonacci sequence (in the syllables of the verses and the constantly shifting time signatures of 9/8 → 8/8 → 7/8 and repeat).
Ticks And Leeches. Careful with That Axe and Metal Scream, the song.

Vicarious is a fantastic album opener about being glued to the TV.
Wings For Marie (Part 1) and 10,000 Days (Wings Part 2), a genuinely heartfelt and touching tribute to Maynard's mother, who had passed away between the release of Lateralus and 10,000 Days.
After this bit of reflection, the album dives right back into the fury with The Pot, an absolutely scathing rant towards hypocrisy. Quite possibly their angriest song since the days of Undertow.
The band returns to discussing Alien Abduction in paranoia-inducing detail with Rosetta Stoned.

Album opener/title track begins with some rather soothing and relaxing tones, but this less heavy direction doesn't make the band any less talented than before. As soon as Justin Chancellor's bass drops in, though, you know it couldn't be any other band.
Pneuma explores these sounds even further, whilst returning to the theme of becoming one with the universe.
The album as a whole has an air of desperation to it, and nowhere is this feeling more present than in Invincible.
If you ever needed proof that Tool can pull off Sweet Dreams Fuel, look no further than Descending and Culling Voices.
Just when you think the album is out of punches to pull, it ends with this behemoth of a track 7empest (pronounced "tempest") that features all band members showing off their technical prowess combined with the wisdom and knowledge they've gained over the years. It even won a Grammy Award in 2020 for Best Metal Performance Of The Year.