A friend recently sent me one of those "What Your Favorite Band Says About You" articles, and one passage in particular stuck out to me:
"Tool: You’re either really smart or really dumb."
Tool is a little like metal's Chuck Palahniuk, an artistic, sensitive and homoerotic talent with a dedicated fanbase of bros. Radio metalheads like to sing along and like to shoot their gun, and one can almost see the band mocking their unsuspecting admirers by getting
frat boys to wear t-shirts with the word "TOOL" printed across the front. Yet Tool are also favored by nerds and Liberal Arts kids who enjoy their long, mathematical compositions, abstract lyrics and music videos modeled after the Brothers Quay. The result is a band that sells millions of records, wins Grammys and packs large venues despite barely doing any interviews and refusing to put their music on iTunes.
Another way that Tool is akin to Palahniuk is that all their art is pretty much alike. Tool devotees (and boy, are they devoted) can tell me that 10,000 Days is more conceptual than Undertow, and I'm sure that if you listen to both of them 10,000 times that's true. But for those of us who also want to make time for other bands, 1996's Ænema, featuring "Forty Six & 2," will satiate our alternative prog-metal needs just fine.
"Forty Six & 2" is inspired by the Jungian Shadow, referring to the human unconsciousness. Tool also references Jung's idea of gaining two more chromosomes in the next evolutionary stage, hence the title. But more impressively, Tool signified the next evolutionary stage in heavy music, building on Metallica's thrash symphonies, Nine Inch Nails' industrial intimacy, Neurosis' post-metal artistry and the Melvins irreverent unpredictability with their own artistic stamp. Tool may not have evolved since Ænema, but as heard in bands like Gojira, Opeth and Intronaut, they got metal to evolve for them.
Showing posts with label intronaut. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intronaut. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
The Ten Best Metal Records of 2013, So Far
In alphabetical order:
1. Amon Amarth, Deceiver of the Gods
Not many bands can stay relevant by making the same album over and over again. But as long as the Vikings in Amon Amarth are owning death metal's most energizing riffs and sea shantey choruses, they'll be one of rare those bands.
2. ASG, Blood Drive
The riffs have slowed down, the melodies soar, and yet the sun-baked stoner metal tones that made Win Us Over a keeper radiate through. This year's gateway metal album to beat.
3. The Dillinger Escape Plan, One of Us is the Killer
Like the Red Hot Chili Peppers or the Replacements, DEP's one consistency was that they were becoming more streamlined and produced with every album. Until this year--One of Us is the Killer is a heavy dose of ferocity that both reaches back to and expands on their early sonic furies. You know, from when mathcore was a punchline.
4. Intronaut, Habitual Levitations
"Nimble," "catchy" and "addictive" aren't words usually used to describe prog-rock. Unless someone is doing it better than everyone else.
5. Kvelertak, Meir
Nobody wants to feel the pressure of following up a monster debut, but Kvelertak sound like they love it. Your friends who tell you about DIIV saving punk and Liturgy saving metal are missing out.
6. Nails, Abandon All Life
Wow! Where did these guys come from? Did someone make a bet that they could make Pig Destroyer sound like the Foo Fighters in 17 minutes? Collect.
7. Ramming Speed, Doomed To Destroy, Destined To Die
It takes a lot for me to tolerate neo-thrash. Even the best bands, like Municipal Waste and Skeletonwitch, are hard to listen to when there's already the Big Four and Testament. But Ramming Speed fused it with just enough death metal to make me wonder why no one thought of this before, between headbangs.
8. Shining, One One One
I don't know what made a Swedish avant-jazz band decide that they could save industrial metal, but I hope they keep doing it. No wonder NIN is back this year.
9. Soilwork, The Living Infinite
Outside of Natural Born Chaos, I assumed that Soilwork was a perfectly honorable background metal band. I had no interest in picking up a double album from them, until a friend planted it in my dropbox. Who knew that a 2-CD death metal set, much less one from Soilwork, could rock this hard? Their countrymen in In Flames and Arch Enemy haven't put out anything this potent in ages.
10. Queens of the Stone Age, Like Clockwork
In which Josh Homme forfeits his title as rock's coolest man to out himself as an emotional wreck. The bravest twist yet in one of modern rock's most indispensable careers.
1. Amon Amarth, Deceiver of the Gods
Not many bands can stay relevant by making the same album over and over again. But as long as the Vikings in Amon Amarth are owning death metal's most energizing riffs and sea shantey choruses, they'll be one of rare those bands.
2. ASG, Blood Drive
The riffs have slowed down, the melodies soar, and yet the sun-baked stoner metal tones that made Win Us Over a keeper radiate through. This year's gateway metal album to beat.
3. The Dillinger Escape Plan, One of Us is the Killer
Like the Red Hot Chili Peppers or the Replacements, DEP's one consistency was that they were becoming more streamlined and produced with every album. Until this year--One of Us is the Killer is a heavy dose of ferocity that both reaches back to and expands on their early sonic furies. You know, from when mathcore was a punchline.
4. Intronaut, Habitual Levitations
"Nimble," "catchy" and "addictive" aren't words usually used to describe prog-rock. Unless someone is doing it better than everyone else.
5. Kvelertak, Meir
Nobody wants to feel the pressure of following up a monster debut, but Kvelertak sound like they love it. Your friends who tell you about DIIV saving punk and Liturgy saving metal are missing out.
6. Nails, Abandon All Life
Wow! Where did these guys come from? Did someone make a bet that they could make Pig Destroyer sound like the Foo Fighters in 17 minutes? Collect.
7. Ramming Speed, Doomed To Destroy, Destined To Die
It takes a lot for me to tolerate neo-thrash. Even the best bands, like Municipal Waste and Skeletonwitch, are hard to listen to when there's already the Big Four and Testament. But Ramming Speed fused it with just enough death metal to make me wonder why no one thought of this before, between headbangs.
8. Shining, One One One
I don't know what made a Swedish avant-jazz band decide that they could save industrial metal, but I hope they keep doing it. No wonder NIN is back this year.
9. Soilwork, The Living Infinite
Outside of Natural Born Chaos, I assumed that Soilwork was a perfectly honorable background metal band. I had no interest in picking up a double album from them, until a friend planted it in my dropbox. Who knew that a 2-CD death metal set, much less one from Soilwork, could rock this hard? Their countrymen in In Flames and Arch Enemy haven't put out anything this potent in ages.
10. Queens of the Stone Age, Like Clockwork
In which Josh Homme forfeits his title as rock's coolest man to out himself as an emotional wreck. The bravest twist yet in one of modern rock's most indispensable careers.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Four Good Omens for 2013
New Intronaut:
So what if The Mars Volta broke up and the new Tool got delayed again? Intronaut is making the catchiest, most addictive prog-metal in the universe, as the intoxicating rhythms of "Milk Leg" demonstrate. You'll read about this one on Pitchfork--say goodbye to one of metal's best kept secrets.
New Kvelertak:
From Motörhead to Discharge, the best-punk metal bands have a way to make the same songs sound fresh album after album. The first single from Kvelertak's newest is exactly the kind of fist-pumping slice of shoutalong thrash that you heard on Kvelertak, but producer Kurt Ballou has me hoping that this one will be even better.
New Megadeth:
Dave Mustaine may be an insufferable lunatic, but I love the way his slide guitar plays over what sounds like a banjo(!?) in this preview clip.
New Nails:
Where did these guys come from? Apparently Kurt Ballou has been producing them also, but the black metalcore riff-fest that they're calling "God's Cold Hands" in the first that I've heard of them. Can't wait to hear the rest on Abandon All Life.
So what if The Mars Volta broke up and the new Tool got delayed again? Intronaut is making the catchiest, most addictive prog-metal in the universe, as the intoxicating rhythms of "Milk Leg" demonstrate. You'll read about this one on Pitchfork--say goodbye to one of metal's best kept secrets.
New Kvelertak:
From Motörhead to Discharge, the best-punk metal bands have a way to make the same songs sound fresh album after album. The first single from Kvelertak's newest is exactly the kind of fist-pumping slice of shoutalong thrash that you heard on Kvelertak, but producer Kurt Ballou has me hoping that this one will be even better.
New Megadeth:
Dave Mustaine may be an insufferable lunatic, but I love the way his slide guitar plays over what sounds like a banjo(!?) in this preview clip.
New Nails:
Where did these guys come from? Apparently Kurt Ballou has been producing them also, but the black metalcore riff-fest that they're calling "God's Cold Hands" in the first that I've heard of them. Can't wait to hear the rest on Abandon All Life.
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