Album Review: Tool's Lateralus

As both a progressive rock advocate and a student pursuing sound engineering, one of my most influential bands is Tool. I find that their masterpiece, Lateralus, to be a milestone in both the progressive and metal genres. Even though it only contains 13 songs, it’s seventy-eight minutes and fifty-eight seconds long. With eight of the thirteen songs being over six minutes long and two of the songs only being one minute transition pieces, this album seemed to push the barrier of most metal albums to this date. It’s actually kind of a shame that they always seem to be roped in with the metal and hard rock genre because their music doesn’t usually tend to always fit within those restraints. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and since it’s release in 2001 it has sold over two and a half million copies. It has also been named 123 on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Definitive 200 list.
The members of Tool have become masters of their craft. Many of their songs are filled with symbolism both musically and lyrically. An example lyrically would be their first song of the album entitled, The Grudge. The lyrics and story of the song are making reference to the story The Scarlett Letter. Musically, they only seem to bend the rules of math and meter to create seamless works of art. The albums title track, Lateralus, is a good example of this. The song is about living in a non-linear fashion. It’s about not really living by the norm, which goes along with Tool’s common theme of thinking for one self. They also connect this to the Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonacci sequence is a pattern of numbers that is the sum of the past two numbers. For instance, the first two numbers are 0 and 1. Those two added together equals 1; one is then added to 1 and that equals two. This pattern continues so that the sequence looks like this: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, etc. This system of numbers, which has been dated back as late as the sixth century, is used in lyrics of Lateralus. Maynard James Keenan, Tool’s vocalist, follows the lyrics emphasizing syllables in the Fibonacci sequence. An example of this would be the first verse going as followed:

(1) Black,
(1) then,
(2) white are,
(3) all I see,
(5) in my infancy,
(8) red and yellow then came to be,
(5) reaching out to me,
(3) lets me see.

This continues in the next verse and Maynard even ‘spirals’ further up and down the sequence. Going further on from this there are the time signatures. The intro main riff are descending time signatures 9/8, 8/8, 7/8. This corresponds with sixteenth number of the sequence, 987. It’s the little things like this that make this album revolutionary, and one of my favorites albums.

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An Initial Post

With this being my first post, I feel like I should talk about what I am looking for with this blog.  To be honest, I’m not sure yet.  I’ve always wanted to have a website where I can post projects of mine.  This blog is, hopefully, the beginning stages of that.  Until then, I plan on developing my ideas and writing skills.  I believe that this will also help in developing my ear and musical ability.  One of the main focuses of this blog will be music.  It is not only my greatest hobby, but also my chosen career path.  This blog will be more general to sound as a whole (post-prodction, audiology,…).  I may end up posting articles about films, or anything else for that matter, to try and find a niche to write about.

            Another main reason for this blog is the chance for criticism.  This way I’ll get an idea whether I’m totally off or not.  So I guess, feel free to tell me if I’m completely off the mark or not.  The blog will also form based on the feedback I get.  Oh, and hopefully this blog sees the light of day.  With that said, I’m just going to show a few articles that I found interesting. 

The following articles are a slight indication of where this blog may be going:

The Wonderful Voice of Samuel L. Jackson

This could be genius.  A mock bedtime story read by none other than Samuel L. Jackson.  Now, as expected with Samuel L., it is appropriately name Go the F--- to Sleep.  This short, yet hilarious story will perfectly capture anyone’s mood that has ever tried to put a child to sleep.  This is not, however, a substitution for a story at bedtime.  Even though Jackson evern says he’s quite often said the title of his book to his daughter, I think it might be for the best to leave that to him.  I must complain that Audbile, the company that make a fair share of the audio books you hear, have to really look towards upgrading their quality.  To only have 64 kbps tops is a joke, especially with the ease of even just streaming HD quality.  At first, I was excited to hear Samuel L.’s low, distinct voice.  I was very disappointed when it was squashed in the recording.  Either way, it’s still Samuel L. Jackson dictating anything.

Maya Beiser - Cello Performance at Ted Talks

I never heard of Maya Beiser before, but now I definitely do.  This American cellist performs an eight-part etude with seven other cellos back her up.  The best part was that she was playing all eight cellos.  Using a video accompaniment with seven short slivers of seven Mayas, she was able to play as the eighth lead voice live.  Now I know it doesn’t sound hard to play in time with an unchanging video, but it is done so well.  Maya spends the whole time remaining in the music and can be seen hopping about in her chair on the parts that arrived a slight bop to them.  If the music sounds of familiar styling, it is because it is from the great Steve Reich; who specializes in minimalist composition.  The piece is Reich’s “Cello Counterpoint” and should be checked out by anyone who enjoys a great, dynamic performance.