Tool
10,000 Days
by Brian Smith
I tried. I really did.
There has been a lot of talk in the rock world about the new Tool LP, and I wanted to give it and the band a fair chance.
Two minutes in and I was intrigued.
“Vicarious” builds slowly, creating a dense sonic portrait that has the band sounding as eerie and methodical as ever. Muted guitar notes and a whole lot of tom-work layer and layer, then dissolve into bridges that never stop evolving into more bridges. Maynard James Keenan’s vocals show themselves and then hide. And before the lyrics become decipherable, you actually think that something incredibly dramatic and interesting is about to happen.
It doesn’t.
Ten minutes in and I was bored.
While Keenan runs through every cliche in the book (singing about people watching television and false messiahs went out of style back in – wait, that was never in style, that was always easy and lame and a ninth-grader’s way of “attacking the world”), Tool sounds like Tool. Like Tool has always sounded. Plodding. Self-absorbed. Redundant.
The worst part: nearly every song clocks in at around seven minutes. Who in the world needs 76 minutes of Tool, on one CD? “Not I,” says the hen. Maybe angry kids in the suburbs. Maybe angry guys driving cars, with their obligatory Tool bumper sticker (you know, that one with the wrench). But not I. And surely not you.
Furthermore, what is, has been and seemingly forever will be is what is so infuriating and disappointing about Tool. They always end up reiterating the very issues that they attack (both lyrically and musically). How do you rail against the norm? How do you rip apart cliches? How do you bend and break musical formats? By doing something different. Unique. It’s what Duke Ellington did and what Bob Dylan and Wilco do now. Tool, however, seem to think that they are the most challenging band since, oh, I don’t know, the Talking Heads. But they’re only feeding their masses.
Sure, on 10,000 Days there are some intricate time changes. Sure, there’s some psychedelia. Some intrigue. But so what? There were on Yes and King Crimson records too. Big deal.
Tool, as always, confuses self-absorption with clarity. Romance with masturbation.
They’re the same band that go out of their way to be “weird and scary,” but seem to have no problem charging their fans $66.66 for a single ticket to one of their concerts. Hello hypocrisy.
Radio 4
Enemies Like This
reviewed by Patrick Beisell
Radio 4’s roots are firmly planted in the rich tradition of British post-punk, lest anyone forget. And of course, whenever a band makes such an obvious approach toward a genre that’s been explored by some of the most influential bands of the past 25 years, they can’t help but invite negative comparison. However, to the band’s credit, Enemies Like This is a much-desired improvement upon 2004’s Stealing of a Nation.
True agit-rock demands a certain degree of indignation: vocal, musical or both. But on Enemies Like This, Radio 4 show a real lack of gusto. Mostly, they stick to the Gang of Four template of guitar stabs over snare kicks, with a few Clash-style harmonies thrown in, presumably, for good measure.
Ostensibly, the issue with Enemies Like This is that it is neither a progression or much of a regression from the now classic 2002 release, Gotham! And like Gotham!, Enemies displays its influences so obtrusively it’s like walking into a fluorescent green wall you saw a mile away. To say the least, Enemies is obvious. The influences, the style, the guitar progressions, the drumming, the lyrics, it all suffers from a lack of novelty; it’s a crying shame that bassist/vocalist Anthony Roman’s voice is wasted on such award-losing lyrics. On nearly every track, the complexities of such issues as activism, economic power determining the status quo, and various other “revolutionary” ideas are approached with all of the verbal subtlety of an eighth grader with an anarchy symbol stitched onto his backpack. If you like your music catchy and derivative, you’ll probably like Enemies.
Upon first listen, it doesn’t take long to realize that the same toe-tapping choruses and anthemic guitar hooks that were presented on Gotham! have been tamed and toned down. Instead of propulsive Television-style guitar work, we are privy to a melody more in the vein of U2. And while one might wish the sound had more bite on the trite reggae percussion of “Ascension Street,” the quieter, more layered sound is just what the doctor ordered on tracks like “Packing Things Up on the Scene.” Most other songs take a lot from driving melodic punk riffs, meshed together with quieter interlocking note-picking. Furious, intelligent, artful and entirely musical, Enemies is a baker’s dozen of cannon shots to the gut – a batch of emotionally visceral and defiant songs recorded by politically cognizant young men. Unfortunately, none of the songs are able to move to a point of originality. Nearly every song here aims for an anthemic level but ends up falling prey to pomposity or banality.