- Apr 5, 2003
- 2,668
- 2
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Tool - 10,000 Days
EMI Virgin Music, Inc. - 82876-81991-2 - 2006
By Brandon Strader
Tool is a very popular band, and they have been for quite a while. They've been garnering more and more fans over the years, yet with this release, 10,000 Days, the fanbase seemed to be divided. Some, like myself, really loved the album while others really hated it (or at least mildly disliked it.) Despite the catch 22 that reviewing this album would arouse, the show must go on. I've never been a Tool fan when any of their other CDs were released, because I saw the music videos, wasn't impressed, discovered metal, and never figured that I needed to go back and check out Tool. When 10.000 Days was released, I went to Wal-mart and bought a copy because of all the hype and controversy going on at our beloved Ultimate Metal, and I was pleasantly surprised. Even after all these months of having owned the album, I still listen to it a lot. I did buy a few past Tool albums but they really do not strike me as well as this one does. Perhaps it is because 10,000 Days is more metal and a bit catchier than those earlier ones.
"Vicarious" opens the album, and displays the new glory of Tool. I think the guitar work received more focus on this album than it has before, perhaps, or the guitarist is simply becoming more proficient at his craft. After a guitar lead introduction, the song enters the first verse. The song hinges on this verse / chorus structure throughout most of the song, however they do go back and play that guitar lead introduction arrangement again at a couple points throughout the song. The guitar rhythm for the verse plays for a while, then drops as the vocals come in amongst the bass. This seems to be the way they prefer doing it for the first couple verses, with vocals and bass eventually rejoined by the guitar rhythm. The chorus has a great vocal melody in it, and great riffs again. There's a solo near the 3:50 mark, but it is really unimpressive as far as solos go. The best things about this track are the riffs, vocal melody in the chorus, and of course the percussion! There's some really outstanding tom work from the percussionist throughout this song, but a lot more near the end. The ending chorus sounds a lot cooler, as they drop the main vocals, and raise the volume of the secondary layered vocal. If you listen earlier, you'll notice this "vocal harmony" amongst the earlier choruses. It's a great way to end the song.
"Jambi" starts out with a "rolling" guitar riff, which is joined by some percussion and eventually drops down to just the guitar riff, vocals, and bass drum. Very soon after that the chorus hits in, yet the music is still fairly mellow at this point. The vocals in the verse have some kind of odd... southern rock?... melody. The chorus is really cool too, with yet another fantastic vocal melody, and the way they use the bass guitar to carry the chorus is neat, as the guitar riff remains the same throughout the chorus. The vocals that lead up to the first "breakdown" always give me goosebumps, as do the ones at the end, but we're not quite there yet. The best part of this breakdown section is the 'talkbox' solo, which is a very well-done rock 'n' roll type solo. The second part of the solo is the coolest, when the guitarist plays the low powerchord and it's like "eWowwww". If that's not descriptive enough for you, you'll just have to buy the CD! Eventually the band breaks back into the verse, that actually sounds more like a chorus when you finally get into it, with the cool heavy rhythm progression and the dual guitar harmonies paired with the melodic vocals. The ending for this song is the best ending on the whole CD with the vocalist singing maniacally until the last note is extended with reverb, and yes: this was the second vocal part that gave me goosebumps. Whoo.
The next track takes a different course from the first two heavy verse/chorus directed ones. "Wings for Marie, Pt. 1" starts with some bass guitar than almost sounds like a very downtuned bell sample. A clean guitar lead enters on the left speaker, and further sets up the base note for the song. The vocals are low octave and somewhat breathy. After some vocals, the bass guitar regains a more clear tone, some high-pitched timpanis are played from a keyboard, as well as some bright, high pitched bells. The vocals head into a higher octave, and go through some different melodies. The song changes into a different key for a while, and soon leads into some heavy rhythms for a brief period of time with some slower-paced double bass accompanied by the more impressive tom fills. The song slows down, becomes much more mellow than even the previous mellow section, and continues this way until the end of the song. A lot of neat sounds are placed throughout the mellow part that aren't quite describable.
The next song, which is the title track "10,000 Days", uses a lot of the arrangements from the previous song into a whole new song. It starts out with some bass guitar setting up the base note for the song, and is eventually joined by percussive hats, thunder, a low percussive hit, and more vocals throughout this section that isn't quite a verse as much as it is just a long section of evolving sound, much like the previous song. It begins to rain, and there is more thunder in the song. This long mellow section goes on for quite a while with the vocalist singing line after line of lyrics until it finally begins to build to a climax with an intensifying percussion performance, and the addition of a strange wooden-sounding instrument in the left speaker. The first appearance of several-part layered vocals enters the music, and it is extremely well-done. Eventually, after about 5 and a half minutes of the same basic progression, the music finally builds to a big enough culmination, and the band enters what I have dubbed the "cruisin' part" whenever I hear it. It just sounds like something they'd play in a movie montage of a dude driving around in his car in the evening. There's another solo soon after with a wah effect and some echo on it that squeals a bit until the wah guitars are split into each channel and become the rhythm for the next part of the song which finally leads to the first actual heavy section. There's a brief bit of powerchords and a vocal melody until it leads into that brief heavy section from the previous song, and "10,000 Days" ends the same way that the previous song did at this point.
"The Pot" starts up with the vocal melody by itself with some cheesy lyrics which is then joined by the bass guitar, and then some sampled bongos. The bass riff is very cool at that point, and you can hear just how good the bass guitar tone is on this album. Heavy guitars fade in to the first appearance of the highly cliche'd vocal part with the lyrics of 'you musta been high, you musta been high, you musta been'. Then the verse begins, which is basically a tamed down version of the introduction with no guitars until the middle of the second repetition of the verse. The heavy chorus has a good powerchord progression, but it isn't very long. The verse eventually comes back in, and the vocalist drops the "F-Bomb" at one point in the lyrics. I remember the first time I heard that; I was thinking, "I should sue Wal-Mart!" Too bad I didn't! There was no parental advisory stamped on this little F-Bomb containing disc. I remember the big deal that was made out of an Evanescence CD that had a single F-Bomb on it and Wal-Mart got sued. I think 10,000 Days has more than one, but I digress. With the vocalist letting out a yell, the song leads into the chorus yet again. Instead of leading into the verse after the chorus, it leads into a thrashier heavy part with the vocal line from the verse. After that, the song changes and becomes quite a bit cooler. There's another wah solo that leads into a more progressive-sounding chorus, that then leads back into another "breakdown" with more wah guitar. They end it with an extended powerchord that sounds like the ending of a song, but then they pick it up AGAIN for another verse / chorus from earlier in the song. Too bad they couldn't repeat that one cool progressive chorus again, that was pretty killer but too dang short. The vocalist does an extended yell for the ending of this song that was pretty wicked.
"Lipan Conjuring". What is to be said? This is the shortest track clocking in at 1:11, and it is one of the tracks that the casual listener would probably skip. It's got indian vocalising for thw whole thing! It's an exotic track, but is pretty annoying and uncharacteristic of the album as well.
"Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)" is the second-shortest track clocking in at 3:46, and it is mostly a feedback-drone type of situation. There's a clean guitar broken chord being played amongst the drone. There are some voice performers playing out a little skit with some dude huffing and puffing like a bulldog out of breath. They talk about some guy in the hospital, and they don't know who he is or who brought him in, or even what is wrong with him. Then the doctor goes in to ask him what happened, and it leads into the next song.
"Rosetta Stoned" starts with a Jim Carrey quote, 'Alrighty then!' I bet Ace Ventura was honored by that, if he actually heard it. I think Jim Carrey prefers the heavier stuff though, like Cannibal Corpse. The drone-like atmosphere of the previous track comes to an end, and the vocal style shifts into an odd monotone kind of fast talking. The song is definitely not one of the highlights of the album, yet that doesn't imply that it isn't a good song either. It just seems like filler at times, and is very different from the style of the earlier music on the album. The verse and chorus mixture are really not so catchy to start with, and the vocals seem to be telling a story of some kind but the album packaging lacks lyrics. I haven't mentioned the packaging yet, but it's very odd. There is a spectacle device sticking out from the case that makes it quite hard to store along other CDs. These glasses can magnify the artwork on the pages, and pretty much anything else you point them at. There are a lot of goofy pictures in the booklet but they don't really make too much sense and my attention span is far too short to try to figure out what it possibly could mean. Back to the song though, "Rosetta Stoned" continues in a fairly undistracting manner for quite a while, and honestly seemed like background music for the time I went off into that tangent describing the artwork, didn't really notice the music too much. Half way through the song it starts to get better. The guitarist begins to play a cool legato lead that brings the song into a much catchier section with breathy vocalizations and a bass guitar performance that once again seems to varry the vibes of the section mostly. There's a breakdown with just bass guitar, and odd percussion sounds eventually joined by a very squeally guitar. It's the sound a baby cat would make it you squeazed it's tail a bit or teased it with milk. The awesome guitar lead re-enters after a while, and it turns into a very enjoyable melodic chorus! It sounds pretty sad, and almost dredg-like at times. The vocalist singing about "crapping the bed". The vocalist lets out a pretty wicked scream covered with distortion and the music begins to intensify with more good tom work, and there's something in there that sort of sounds like bongos... The song is very long, and it ends with more singing about "goshdarn crap the bed" (that's the cleaned up version.)
At this point, we're about an hour into the album, and it's beginning to be very exhausting. The music is really good (with "Rosetta Stoned" being one of the weaker tracks thus far) but the "journey" through all of the content really takes a lot out of you, especially if you're writing a huge freaking review. Anyway, "Intension" really calms the mood down from the last track. There's a chirping bass guitar, and more bongos with reverb-soaked vocals dragging the song slowly along. Eventually the bass drops out to leave just bongos. After a few words, it enters into a complete clean-electric guitar breakdown which is eventually rejoined by the bass guitar, An electronic drumkit then breaks in, which was really a surprise at this point and totally unexpected. A cool effect they also used here was an echoing reverb that faded in and then quickly back out. There is a crunchier guitar solo played panned slightly right, and then back into the earlier verse of vocals and bass except now the percussion remains this wicked little electronic beat. The song is extremely pleasant, and not distracting at all.
Finally, way at the end of the album is one of my favorite tracks of the whole album. "Right In Two" has a soothing acoustic melody throughout the verse, and the chorus doesn't really elevate to the point of really being too noticeable of a transition, yet it still has a pretty strong effect. The vocalist sings a lot about monkeys, and the vocal lines are pretty good but by this point they really sound like a typical Tool vocal line. The track is really enjoyable nonetheless, and after a couple minutes of this melodic acoustic verse, the song finally begins to morph... yet after some more mellow riffing and vocalizing, the goes back into the verse again for a while. I've discovered that the trick to making a song that people will want to hear again and again is to stall, and keep stalling... then only repeat the chorus about two times. And the chorus must really be grand, which will leave the impression in the listener's mind that the song was really brilliant. Three and a half minutes into the song, and it finally begins to change into a form where the ending would have more freedom to bring about the end of the song, I suppose. The rhythms become heavy powerchords, and the vocal melody changes slightly, though it is still the same progression. That ends with an extended powerchord, and MORE BONGOS! Some heavy riffing breaks out for a quick thrash, but then they drop to silence while the echo-covered vocals enter. Then the vocals drop out, and the heavy rhythm comes back in and the song really begins to intensify at this point. When the music becomes as intense as it could, it breaks out into a series of percussive hits with the heavy guitar riffs still oozing out. Thus the song ends, and I really don't know why I remembered loving the song so much. It's a good track though, and the verse is really well-done.
The album ends with "Viginti Tres", which is basically a bunch of noise. Some guitar feedback sounds, some electronic creaks, and more. After 3/4 of the song, some pitch-shifted vocals come in extremely low and incoherent, and after a bunch of screechy monster-type sounds, the song - and the album - ends. I'd have to say it was a pretty enjoyable journey that one could take again and again, though with too many listens it could definitely get old fast, especially the later chunk of the album. So there you have it, the descriptive words of a man who had never been a Tool fan, and really didn't care much for them until now.
8.5/10
UM's Review Rating Scale
Official Tool Website
Official Virgin Records Website
EMI Virgin Music, Inc. - 82876-81991-2 - 2006
By Brandon Strader
Tool is a very popular band, and they have been for quite a while. They've been garnering more and more fans over the years, yet with this release, 10,000 Days, the fanbase seemed to be divided. Some, like myself, really loved the album while others really hated it (or at least mildly disliked it.) Despite the catch 22 that reviewing this album would arouse, the show must go on. I've never been a Tool fan when any of their other CDs were released, because I saw the music videos, wasn't impressed, discovered metal, and never figured that I needed to go back and check out Tool. When 10.000 Days was released, I went to Wal-mart and bought a copy because of all the hype and controversy going on at our beloved Ultimate Metal, and I was pleasantly surprised. Even after all these months of having owned the album, I still listen to it a lot. I did buy a few past Tool albums but they really do not strike me as well as this one does. Perhaps it is because 10,000 Days is more metal and a bit catchier than those earlier ones.
"Vicarious" opens the album, and displays the new glory of Tool. I think the guitar work received more focus on this album than it has before, perhaps, or the guitarist is simply becoming more proficient at his craft. After a guitar lead introduction, the song enters the first verse. The song hinges on this verse / chorus structure throughout most of the song, however they do go back and play that guitar lead introduction arrangement again at a couple points throughout the song. The guitar rhythm for the verse plays for a while, then drops as the vocals come in amongst the bass. This seems to be the way they prefer doing it for the first couple verses, with vocals and bass eventually rejoined by the guitar rhythm. The chorus has a great vocal melody in it, and great riffs again. There's a solo near the 3:50 mark, but it is really unimpressive as far as solos go. The best things about this track are the riffs, vocal melody in the chorus, and of course the percussion! There's some really outstanding tom work from the percussionist throughout this song, but a lot more near the end. The ending chorus sounds a lot cooler, as they drop the main vocals, and raise the volume of the secondary layered vocal. If you listen earlier, you'll notice this "vocal harmony" amongst the earlier choruses. It's a great way to end the song.
"Jambi" starts out with a "rolling" guitar riff, which is joined by some percussion and eventually drops down to just the guitar riff, vocals, and bass drum. Very soon after that the chorus hits in, yet the music is still fairly mellow at this point. The vocals in the verse have some kind of odd... southern rock?... melody. The chorus is really cool too, with yet another fantastic vocal melody, and the way they use the bass guitar to carry the chorus is neat, as the guitar riff remains the same throughout the chorus. The vocals that lead up to the first "breakdown" always give me goosebumps, as do the ones at the end, but we're not quite there yet. The best part of this breakdown section is the 'talkbox' solo, which is a very well-done rock 'n' roll type solo. The second part of the solo is the coolest, when the guitarist plays the low powerchord and it's like "eWowwww". If that's not descriptive enough for you, you'll just have to buy the CD! Eventually the band breaks back into the verse, that actually sounds more like a chorus when you finally get into it, with the cool heavy rhythm progression and the dual guitar harmonies paired with the melodic vocals. The ending for this song is the best ending on the whole CD with the vocalist singing maniacally until the last note is extended with reverb, and yes: this was the second vocal part that gave me goosebumps. Whoo.
The next track takes a different course from the first two heavy verse/chorus directed ones. "Wings for Marie, Pt. 1" starts with some bass guitar than almost sounds like a very downtuned bell sample. A clean guitar lead enters on the left speaker, and further sets up the base note for the song. The vocals are low octave and somewhat breathy. After some vocals, the bass guitar regains a more clear tone, some high-pitched timpanis are played from a keyboard, as well as some bright, high pitched bells. The vocals head into a higher octave, and go through some different melodies. The song changes into a different key for a while, and soon leads into some heavy rhythms for a brief period of time with some slower-paced double bass accompanied by the more impressive tom fills. The song slows down, becomes much more mellow than even the previous mellow section, and continues this way until the end of the song. A lot of neat sounds are placed throughout the mellow part that aren't quite describable.
The next song, which is the title track "10,000 Days", uses a lot of the arrangements from the previous song into a whole new song. It starts out with some bass guitar setting up the base note for the song, and is eventually joined by percussive hats, thunder, a low percussive hit, and more vocals throughout this section that isn't quite a verse as much as it is just a long section of evolving sound, much like the previous song. It begins to rain, and there is more thunder in the song. This long mellow section goes on for quite a while with the vocalist singing line after line of lyrics until it finally begins to build to a climax with an intensifying percussion performance, and the addition of a strange wooden-sounding instrument in the left speaker. The first appearance of several-part layered vocals enters the music, and it is extremely well-done. Eventually, after about 5 and a half minutes of the same basic progression, the music finally builds to a big enough culmination, and the band enters what I have dubbed the "cruisin' part" whenever I hear it. It just sounds like something they'd play in a movie montage of a dude driving around in his car in the evening. There's another solo soon after with a wah effect and some echo on it that squeals a bit until the wah guitars are split into each channel and become the rhythm for the next part of the song which finally leads to the first actual heavy section. There's a brief bit of powerchords and a vocal melody until it leads into that brief heavy section from the previous song, and "10,000 Days" ends the same way that the previous song did at this point.
"The Pot" starts up with the vocal melody by itself with some cheesy lyrics which is then joined by the bass guitar, and then some sampled bongos. The bass riff is very cool at that point, and you can hear just how good the bass guitar tone is on this album. Heavy guitars fade in to the first appearance of the highly cliche'd vocal part with the lyrics of 'you musta been high, you musta been high, you musta been'. Then the verse begins, which is basically a tamed down version of the introduction with no guitars until the middle of the second repetition of the verse. The heavy chorus has a good powerchord progression, but it isn't very long. The verse eventually comes back in, and the vocalist drops the "F-Bomb" at one point in the lyrics. I remember the first time I heard that; I was thinking, "I should sue Wal-Mart!" Too bad I didn't! There was no parental advisory stamped on this little F-Bomb containing disc. I remember the big deal that was made out of an Evanescence CD that had a single F-Bomb on it and Wal-Mart got sued. I think 10,000 Days has more than one, but I digress. With the vocalist letting out a yell, the song leads into the chorus yet again. Instead of leading into the verse after the chorus, it leads into a thrashier heavy part with the vocal line from the verse. After that, the song changes and becomes quite a bit cooler. There's another wah solo that leads into a more progressive-sounding chorus, that then leads back into another "breakdown" with more wah guitar. They end it with an extended powerchord that sounds like the ending of a song, but then they pick it up AGAIN for another verse / chorus from earlier in the song. Too bad they couldn't repeat that one cool progressive chorus again, that was pretty killer but too dang short. The vocalist does an extended yell for the ending of this song that was pretty wicked.
"Lipan Conjuring". What is to be said? This is the shortest track clocking in at 1:11, and it is one of the tracks that the casual listener would probably skip. It's got indian vocalising for thw whole thing! It's an exotic track, but is pretty annoying and uncharacteristic of the album as well.
"Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)" is the second-shortest track clocking in at 3:46, and it is mostly a feedback-drone type of situation. There's a clean guitar broken chord being played amongst the drone. There are some voice performers playing out a little skit with some dude huffing and puffing like a bulldog out of breath. They talk about some guy in the hospital, and they don't know who he is or who brought him in, or even what is wrong with him. Then the doctor goes in to ask him what happened, and it leads into the next song.
"Rosetta Stoned" starts with a Jim Carrey quote, 'Alrighty then!' I bet Ace Ventura was honored by that, if he actually heard it. I think Jim Carrey prefers the heavier stuff though, like Cannibal Corpse. The drone-like atmosphere of the previous track comes to an end, and the vocal style shifts into an odd monotone kind of fast talking. The song is definitely not one of the highlights of the album, yet that doesn't imply that it isn't a good song either. It just seems like filler at times, and is very different from the style of the earlier music on the album. The verse and chorus mixture are really not so catchy to start with, and the vocals seem to be telling a story of some kind but the album packaging lacks lyrics. I haven't mentioned the packaging yet, but it's very odd. There is a spectacle device sticking out from the case that makes it quite hard to store along other CDs. These glasses can magnify the artwork on the pages, and pretty much anything else you point them at. There are a lot of goofy pictures in the booklet but they don't really make too much sense and my attention span is far too short to try to figure out what it possibly could mean. Back to the song though, "Rosetta Stoned" continues in a fairly undistracting manner for quite a while, and honestly seemed like background music for the time I went off into that tangent describing the artwork, didn't really notice the music too much. Half way through the song it starts to get better. The guitarist begins to play a cool legato lead that brings the song into a much catchier section with breathy vocalizations and a bass guitar performance that once again seems to varry the vibes of the section mostly. There's a breakdown with just bass guitar, and odd percussion sounds eventually joined by a very squeally guitar. It's the sound a baby cat would make it you squeazed it's tail a bit or teased it with milk. The awesome guitar lead re-enters after a while, and it turns into a very enjoyable melodic chorus! It sounds pretty sad, and almost dredg-like at times. The vocalist singing about "crapping the bed". The vocalist lets out a pretty wicked scream covered with distortion and the music begins to intensify with more good tom work, and there's something in there that sort of sounds like bongos... The song is very long, and it ends with more singing about "goshdarn crap the bed" (that's the cleaned up version.)
At this point, we're about an hour into the album, and it's beginning to be very exhausting. The music is really good (with "Rosetta Stoned" being one of the weaker tracks thus far) but the "journey" through all of the content really takes a lot out of you, especially if you're writing a huge freaking review. Anyway, "Intension" really calms the mood down from the last track. There's a chirping bass guitar, and more bongos with reverb-soaked vocals dragging the song slowly along. Eventually the bass drops out to leave just bongos. After a few words, it enters into a complete clean-electric guitar breakdown which is eventually rejoined by the bass guitar, An electronic drumkit then breaks in, which was really a surprise at this point and totally unexpected. A cool effect they also used here was an echoing reverb that faded in and then quickly back out. There is a crunchier guitar solo played panned slightly right, and then back into the earlier verse of vocals and bass except now the percussion remains this wicked little electronic beat. The song is extremely pleasant, and not distracting at all.
Finally, way at the end of the album is one of my favorite tracks of the whole album. "Right In Two" has a soothing acoustic melody throughout the verse, and the chorus doesn't really elevate to the point of really being too noticeable of a transition, yet it still has a pretty strong effect. The vocalist sings a lot about monkeys, and the vocal lines are pretty good but by this point they really sound like a typical Tool vocal line. The track is really enjoyable nonetheless, and after a couple minutes of this melodic acoustic verse, the song finally begins to morph... yet after some more mellow riffing and vocalizing, the goes back into the verse again for a while. I've discovered that the trick to making a song that people will want to hear again and again is to stall, and keep stalling... then only repeat the chorus about two times. And the chorus must really be grand, which will leave the impression in the listener's mind that the song was really brilliant. Three and a half minutes into the song, and it finally begins to change into a form where the ending would have more freedom to bring about the end of the song, I suppose. The rhythms become heavy powerchords, and the vocal melody changes slightly, though it is still the same progression. That ends with an extended powerchord, and MORE BONGOS! Some heavy riffing breaks out for a quick thrash, but then they drop to silence while the echo-covered vocals enter. Then the vocals drop out, and the heavy rhythm comes back in and the song really begins to intensify at this point. When the music becomes as intense as it could, it breaks out into a series of percussive hits with the heavy guitar riffs still oozing out. Thus the song ends, and I really don't know why I remembered loving the song so much. It's a good track though, and the verse is really well-done.
The album ends with "Viginti Tres", which is basically a bunch of noise. Some guitar feedback sounds, some electronic creaks, and more. After 3/4 of the song, some pitch-shifted vocals come in extremely low and incoherent, and after a bunch of screechy monster-type sounds, the song - and the album - ends. I'd have to say it was a pretty enjoyable journey that one could take again and again, though with too many listens it could definitely get old fast, especially the later chunk of the album. So there you have it, the descriptive words of a man who had never been a Tool fan, and really didn't care much for them until now.
8.5/10
UM's Review Rating Scale
Official Tool Website
Official Virgin Records Website
