September 2020 Feature Release - The Gateway Edition

It's now September which of course means that we'll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we're asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We're really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don't be shy.

This month's feature release for The Gateway is the classic 1996 sophomore album "Aenima" from Los Angeles alternative metal legends Tool. The band had really hit the ground running with 1993's "Undertow" record however their follow-up saw them reaching all new levels of artistic & commercial success & often vies for the title of Tool's finest hour. Where does it stand for you personally? Is there a better Tool release than this one?

https://metal.academy/releases/77

Big Tool fan here. While Undertow set a very high standard for this band, it was Ænima that sent them over the edge from a critical standpoint. And when the band were creating well thought out developments of their original sound, they created some of their best all around songs in their entire discography. However, in their bid to become more progressive/avant-garde, Tool created something that was trying to be humouous, but ended up falling flat. If they took out all of those damn interludes, the album would have been more streamlined and perhaps would not feel like a slog by the time you reach "Pushit" and "Third Eye".

6/10

"Aenima" is unquestionably a classic album as far as I'm concerned however I agree that it could definitely have been better if the band had omitted a couple of those silly attempts at humour. It probably wouldn't have been enough to get me up to a full 5/5 rating however there's little doubt that the inclusion of "Intermission" & " Die Eier von Satan" has tainted my opinion just a touch. Still... just looking through the tracklisting now I can see nine tracks that I regard as genuinely classic which is more than I can say for most band's careers so this is absolutely essential alternative metal. 2001's "Lateralus" is my go-to Tool record but "Aenima" isn't very far behind & has made a significant impact on my life over the years.

4.5/5

As I've said in the past when Lateralus popped up here, I was (and still am) a massive Tool fan and they still scratch a certain itch for me that no other band can. Their riff grooves and overall songwriting is unmatched when it comes to Alt Metal, even though they can go off the deep end a few too many times. Aenima sits below 10,000 Days as my second favorite Tool album, beating out Lateralus by quite a large margin. Even though the interludes are pretty silly and kind of unnecessary, I prefer how they're done in here over Lateralus' strange atmospheric drones that begin and end out of nowhere. For better or worse they're more memorable and, for me, actually add to the album experience. While Tool did try to go for humor I really think it's a nihilistic, ironic sort of humor that never really bothered me in the same way it seems to bother Saxy. 

That being said everything in-between the interludes is fantastic, with pretty much every song except for maybe "H." being a Tool necessity. The amount of anger and cynicism towards the world comes out heavily in Aenima and makes the complex riffing hit just a bit harder. "Third Eye" is a bit too drawn out for my liking, "(-) Ions" never fails to make me exceedingly uncomfortable even though I know that's the point, and "jimmy" is definitely forgettable compared to the rest of the album. That said this is definitely still Tool at (almost) their best, so the end product is still going to get high marks from me. "Stinkfist", "Eulogy", "Forty Six & 2", and "Pushit" still have killer grooves and fantastic, emotionally charged vocals that still hold up as being essential to the Alt Metal genre. 

4.5/5