Tools third studio album Lateralus is an uninspired Hodge-podge of double bass drum kicks and filtered guitar that unlike their previous albums amounts to something that is neither deep nor meaningful.
Opening with a track entitled “The Grudge” Tool puts on full display that they have resorted to a myriad of electronic delays, vocal effects, and sludgy drum beats to fill their so called new millennium sound. Maynard James Keenan, the lead man, applies a vocoder effect to his vocals that does nothing but give the song an over the top silly feel while unleashing equally laughable lyrics like “Saturn ascends, choose one or ten. Hang on or be humbled again” or “Give away the stone. Let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and fated anchor.” Gone is the promising new age progressive rock sound that had made the band so promising after the release of their first two studio albums Undertow and Aenima.
In place of meaningful, socially relevant lyrics, the band has resorted to songs that revolve around planets, astrology and just about anything else pertaining to the metaphysical. As the album progresses the lyrics feel more and more like an inside joke between the band instead of something that the listener can really grab onto and find meaning for themselves. This is on full display in the single off the album entitled Schism, James Keenan sings phrases such as “Mildewed and smoldering, fundamental differing, Pure intention juxtaposed will set two lovers souls in motion” and “Point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over, To bring the pieces back together, rediscover communication” what the band is trying to say in these songs is anyone's guess but it's clear that they have alienated their listeners by seemingly picking loose phrases out of a hat and crudely cutting and pasting them together to create a jumbled messes of songs.
The dissonant electronic noises and elements that Tool has employed to try to give a more modern depth to the album fall flat and just add unwarranted noise to an already noisy, annoying soundscape. In the end it is just an exercise in boredom, the band tries to see how long they can go through the motions, pounding the same repetitive rhythms, following the same formula of starting slow, ramping up far to early in each track and subsequently sputtering through the remainder of the songs. Each track is so muddied with the sludge sound of the low tuned bass and excessive double bass drum kicks that the tracks have no identity, after awhile each track melds into one another to make an amorphous wall of sound distorted with digital effects accompanied by meaningless songwriting.
Lateralus quite simply put is an album that overstays it's welcome. Each track has the appearance of a deep soundscape destined to immerse any listener but unfortunately it amounts to absolutely nothing. In an attempt to create a magnum opus that transcends space and time Tool has come off as a group of self obsessed musicians whose sound and message has taken a step in the wrong direction.
