Released:  September 17th, 1996

Recorded:  September 1995 – March 1996

Genre:  Alternative Metal, Progressive Metal

Record Label:  Zoo Entertainment

Duration:  77:18

Producer:  David Bottrill

Personnel

Track Listing

Singles

Why Ænima is One of My Favorites

A long while back I covered Tool’s Undertow.  At the time, I was torn between whether to hit Undertow or Ænima first and in the end I went with Undertow due mostly to sentiment.  Now I remember having a great time with Ænima around the time my tastes were starting to shift to electronic music (a good 5 to 6 years after its release), but as I’ve been revisiting it these past couple of weeks, I’ve come to realize that it is leaps and bounds beyond the often challenging Undertow; I don’t know if I just didn’t remember it as well as I’d thought or if it struck me differently now than it did back then, but it was like hearing it for the first time – I was totally blown away.

Undertow was a record that I grew to love.  It took a lot of dedicated listening and patience to get intimate with it.  Ænima, however, is much more instantly satisfying.  Of course multiple listens enrich the experience, but there’s definitely some immediate accessibility here.  Like the previous album, there are longish passages where little seems to happen, though this time the payoff is more rewarding and less cerebral.  Standard song structure makes a bit of a comeback with mostly identifiable verses and choruses, though in some cases these take place within a larger context of the sort of “movements” found on Undertow.  Strange time signatures were another challenging aspect of Undertow.  I can tell that they’ve made their way on to Ænima as well, but they’re handled much more deftly this time around and turn the song into something immediately interesting, not difficult.  Some listeners get all worked up when a band uses bizarre time signatures in their music; what I want to point out is that using weird timing doesn’t make the band genius, it’s all about using them in a way that creates something new and exciting.  Making something unique isn’t hard – the trick is making it unique and approachable.

Keenan stays much more consistent with his vocals this time around.  He combines singing with typical “rock shouting” to great effect, and there’s much less indecipherable mumbling on this record.  The guitars are more forceful and purposeful and the album is filled with amazing riffs.  A little bit of that sludginess from Undertow carries over, melding with friendly rhythms to create a thick, crushing sound.  Ænima still contains its share of cryptic lyrics, though I find myself “getting it” at least half the time.  Overall it’s an album of peaks and valleys, the peaks made all the more impressive by the depth of the valleys.

Tool is a tough band to make sweeping generalizations about, so I’d like to go over a few of my favorites.  Note that despite Tool’s “progressive” approach, there is still some filler here (a “tradition” with both 90’s music and hip-hop that I’ll never understand) including “Useful Idiot,” “Message to Harry Manback,” “Intermission,” “Die Eier von Satan” (sort of), “Cesaro Summability,” and “(-) Ions” (another sort of).  This bumps the album down to 9 songs, but being rather lengthy, it’s more than enough.  And I suppose there is some enjoyment to be gleaned from “Die Eier…” (a cookie recipe being read in German made to sound something like a Nazi rally) and the quasi-instrumental “Ions” the first time around.  “Intermission” is a cool sounding organ rendition of the riff in the following “jimmy,” but it’s ultimately a bit pointless.

“Stinkfist” kicks things off, and like the title suggests, the lyrics point straight to the act of fisting.  Keenan has a certain fascination with the anus in the way that Cradle of Filth is drawn to all matters of the cunt, but at least he’s actually trying to say something here.  The message comes across pretty clear; it’s about not being satisfied never being able to get enough, be it drugs, sex, or any other type of gratifying behavior.  The analogy here is needing something as extreme as fisting to be able to feel anything at all.  The softspoken verses are undone by the powerful assertion in the chorus – “It’s not enough / I need more / Nothing seems to satisfy / I don’t want it / I just need it / To feel, to breath, to know I’m alive.”

“Eulogy” takes its time warming up, a long time, but it finally starts building steam with the steady buzz of a guitar.  And then, after Keenan’s far away, megaphone-sounding vocals, it erupts into what is really quite a pleasant melody backed by the slamming of drums and guitar.  There’s something to be said for the almost robotic repetition of “we’ll miss him;” I suppose it suggests a degree of sarcasm. Whoever it is that is receiving this “eulogy” was obviously of some note, who had fooled the singer at some point, and for whatever reason, the singer’s eyes have been opened.  It strikes me as being directed towards a cult leader – “he a lot to say, he had a lot of nothing to say” and various other lines speak to the power of the subject, “not all martyrs see divinity / but at least you tried” most of all.  It’s a shame that the beautiful chorus dies away after only a couple of repetitions, because it really is one of the most aurally beautiful moments on the entire record.

“Forty Six & 2” is one of those totally cryptic pieces off the album.  I don’t know what the hell it’s about, but it’s got some of the heaviest and darkest riffing on the album.  The way he belts “my shadow” is one of those climactic moments that Undertow had a difficult time finding.  This track probably comes the closest to a standard metal song and it’s fairly approachable though the beat does start doing all this tricky stuff during the last couple of minutes.  But if I had to show someone what Tool sounds like in one song, this would be as good a start as any.

“Hooker with a Penis” might be my favorite song on Ænima.  It’s heavy, a little faster than the average Tool song, and it’s got the best response I’ve ever heard from a band regarding fan cries of “sellout!”  It isn’t even particularly profound, it just captures a level of honesty and throws “the big picture” back at the fan in such a way that defies rebuttal.  The story here is that “true fan” from back in the days of the Opiate EP is telling Keenan that he thinks the band has sold out.  And the response? “All you know about me is what I’ve sold you / Dumb fuck / I sold out long before you ever heard my name /… / I sold my soul to make a record / Dip shit / And you bought one!”  Most bands try to fight off the “sellout” label as long and as hard as they can, so it’s refreshing to hear Keenan lay it out how it really is – by the time any of this music is widely distributed, bands have long since had to compromise some degree of artistic integrity.  It’s damn brilliant.  And then there’s way he screams “I’m the fuckin’ man / and you’re the fuckin’ man / so take that fuckin’ finger / and stick it up your aaaaass!”  It makes me want to giggle at a younger version of myself and those around me.

“Ænema” stands out due to its doomsday story.  Keenan sarcastically welcomes armageddon as a cure for a false and superficial existence (“fret for your lawsuit, fret for your prozac”) and then suggests that everyone “learn to swim” before lashing out against a number of things.  “Fuck Ron L. Hubbard and fuck all his clones / Fuck all those gun-toting hip gangster wannabes / Fuck retro anything and fuck your tattoos…” is a telling expression of just what it is that Tool find intolerable about this world.  All the while the bass has rumbled and guitars have smashed around in the background, and then suddenly, we get a serene, almost uplifting bit of music that accompanies Keenan’s wish – “I’m praying for tidal waves / I wanna see the ground give way…”  It’s a clever juxtaposition that’s surely been done before, but not this well.

The tracks I didn’t mention are well worth hearing as well.  Great riffs accompany “jimmy,” while “H.” has one of Keenan’s finest melodies gently bubbling under the surface, and “Pushit,” perhaps obviously, has some fun wordplay going on.  “Third Eye” is the “progressive monolith” of Ænima, which goes through several mutations throughout its almost 14 minute run.

I’ve had a really, really great time listening to Ænima these past few days and getting myself reacquainted with the record.  I remember the bassy riffs and intriguing melodies laced throughout the album, I guess I just don’t remember them being this good.  It’s interesting that Ænima is considered the true beginning of their progressive approach and that Undertow is classified as their last mostly traditional record.  Had I not stuck with Undertow, I might’ve never picked it up except to hear “Sober,” and not only did I instantly like Ænima, I also found myself completely enthralled when coming back to it.  Normally, the “progressive stuff” is what takes getting used to.

If there’s a Tool album from the 90’s that’s a “must hear,” it’s Ænima beyond a doubt.  I vaguely remember hearing 2001’s Lateralus at some point, but by 2006’s 10,000 Days I had long since ceased keeping up with hard rock and metal bands (well, aside from a few of my very favorites), but if both of these are more of what these guys were able to crank out back in ’96, I’m eager to dive in.

Written by The Cubist

Other albums from Tool in this series:

• 1993 – Undertow – Issue #16

Back to The Cubist’s 90’s Albums