Fully listened to the album in full twice thru my studio headphones while playing AC Odyssey and my final take on the album will prolly ruffle feathers in here but I genuinely am not trolling.
This is not a good ALBUM. And I say it like that in the sense that it does not musically flow whatsoever like an ALBUM. This essentially felt to me like a decorated collection of jam sessions/freestyles. Not songs. Granted, jam sessions by EXTREMELY talented musicians who were musically flexing. But that’s all it ever feels like. A showcase/talent show. Not great RECORDS from a musical standpoint. And I wouldn’t even say that this is par for the course for Tool because of course the trippy sound, the odd time signatures, the elongated song lengths, that’s all a staple for Tool. But those albums felt like ALBUMS and those songs felt like SONGS.
That really sums it up for me tho. Not really much else I can elaborate on. This felt like a glamorized jam session and it severely takes away from the replayability of the album. There were of course multiple points that especially as an artist, it blew me the fuck away jus literally from a “Who thinks of this kind of shit?” standpoint. And as usual Danny Carey is a fucking magician so it’s always a joy to hear his drum tracks. And Chocolate Chip Trip is my favorite song on the album and the only one I kept replaying. And that’s less of a song and more of a drum solo wit trippy synths over it lol so take that as you will.
Also, jus a funny/interesting little thing I noticed, from the standpoint of how the Metal community seems to always hate on “mumble Rap”....For essentially 90% of ALL of Maynard’s vocals, I had no fucking clue what he was ever saying thru the course of the entire album lol. And this is wit $500 studio monitor headphones and 2 entire listens. Now this may be more of an engineering problem and their engineer is terrible on vocals, or maybe Maynard’s weird ass jus literally wanted them like that from a stylistic point. But yea most of the album was unintelligible and I’ve literally heard TONS of screaming/gutteral vocals that were still more intelligible than this. Even on moments like the intro of Culling Voices where it’s ONLY singing and clean guitar, it was still a struggle to understand a word he was saying without reading along to it.
Not problem with the audio mix on my end. At any given point you can choose which instrument to focus on and it's clear and sharp or you can just get lost in the mix and volume swells as a whole. Justin shines on Invincible (that bass solo), Adam on 7empest (that guitar solo) and MJK really shines on Pneuma. Danny is a beast everywhere.
If anything MJK could have came a little harder vocally but there is little point if it's not going to be something he can go out and do live night after night. He's got killer screams in old songs but they don't play them live anymore.
Music is subjective etc, could be the mix on your end, or just not your cup of tea. Hard to dissect this album on only a couple play through.
Honestly I was a little disappointed after my first listen. I thought Descending and Invincible were the best tracks and I heard them shits months before the album came out. It did grow on me though after a while.
Comments
This is not a good ALBUM. And I say it like that in the sense that it does not musically flow whatsoever like an ALBUM. This essentially felt to me like a decorated collection of jam sessions/freestyles. Not songs. Granted, jam sessions by EXTREMELY talented musicians who were musically flexing. But that’s all it ever feels like. A showcase/talent show. Not great RECORDS from a musical standpoint. And I wouldn’t even say that this is par for the course for Tool because of course the trippy sound, the odd time signatures, the elongated song lengths, that’s all a staple for Tool. But those albums felt like ALBUMS and those songs felt like SONGS.
Also, jus a funny/interesting little thing I noticed, from the standpoint of how the Metal community seems to always hate on “mumble Rap”....For essentially 90% of ALL of Maynard’s vocals, I had no fucking clue what he was ever saying thru the course of the entire album lol. And this is wit $500 studio monitor headphones and 2 entire listens. Now this may be more of an engineering problem and their engineer is terrible on vocals, or maybe Maynard’s weird ass jus literally wanted them like that from a stylistic point. But yea most of the album was unintelligible and I’ve literally heard TONS of screaming/gutteral vocals that were still more intelligible than this. Even on moments like the intro of Culling Voices where it’s ONLY singing and clean guitar, it was still a struggle to understand a word he was saying without reading along to it.
If anything MJK could have came a little harder vocally but there is little point if it's not going to be something he can go out and do live night after night. He's got killer screams in old songs but they don't play them live anymore.
Music is subjective etc, could be the mix on your end, or just not your cup of tea. Hard to dissect this album on only a couple play through.