Review Summary: No light at the end of the tunnel.
The initial guitar twangs fade to silence ever so subtly arising a sense of tension, suspense and wonder. A softer, lighter guitar rhythm ensues, filling the cavernous regions of even the most tone deaf of ears. It was at this point in 'Patient' when I started to wonder what I had sold myself here and more importantly, what was to come from none other than Tool's
Lateralus. I was once told of its genius, it's amazing mathematical properties relating to the fibonacci sequence that was well and truly beyond the average listener; on paper, this sets itself up to be masterpiece. It's been months since that experience and here I still stand, confused at why I can't enjoy such a thing. Perhaps I just don't
get it.
Or alternatively, maybe
Lateralus Is in fact far too ambitious and ultimately fails to deliver.
What is unquestionable about their endeavours is their musical prowess. For instance, the bass riff from 'Schism' exemplifies this, with technical ability of skill and extensive knowledge of time signature manipulation. It's even harder to pretend that this isn't a regular occurrence. The entire album is admirable in its effort to balance itself out giving a nice distribution of heaviness and softness. In the long run, however, these characteristics are completely irrelevant when imminent flaws are plentiful.
Aside from a handful of riffs and melodies,
Lateralus is strikingly unmemorable. Nothing truly stands out across its total run time of almost 80 minutes and this is a bother for an album of such length. Any album of 80 minutes should boast a plethora of astoundingly incredible moments but as the manic sounds of 'faaip de oiad' cut to black, one can't help but think that they were somewhat cheated. Too much of this album sounds alike; the guitar tone, bass tone and drums sound equally as bland offering little variety. Due to the length of the album, this becomes an immense problem as it becomes difficult to distinguish one song from one another as the thick, dense distorted chord rarely changes. What makes matters worse is that this, especially, is the kind of thing best listened to as a whole but with such little sonic variation, it simply becomes boring extremely quickly. To its credit, it does enhance the feeling that all songs are part of a bigger entity but it leaves far too much to be desired after a whole run through.
Following in this monotonous, bland suit are the vocals. It must be said that they add to the inevitable downfall in this with its dreary tone, lacklustre and mediocre melodies and only encourages the stale, one lifeless atmosphere the instrumentation already do a good enough job at creating. Just like the instrumentation, there's little to be remembered. There is more variety to feast upon, with Maynard James Keenan using whisper like vocals and sometimes a scream but none of it is particularly interesting as the delivery is lazy and soulless. However, I seem to be under the impression that the quiet, whisper like vocals accompanied with a more intense, furious section is supposed to portray delayed gratification. It's a common theme, with many songs starting quiet before releasing its culmination of everything that the song was building up to be. There's nothing inherently wrong with delayed gratification and can be used very powerfully when executed in the right manner but this is ultimately where Tool's ambition proves to be too much. To put simply, there is no high in this with the loud sections being nothing worth clamouring about in the slightest. It promises so much with its frequent, almost silent interludes but sadly fails to deliver each time. If there is theoretically a high, it's impossible to tell the difference due to the monotony of the vocals and instrumentation, as stated above. And without a high, all the waiting feels too drawn out for its own good, once again adding to its incapability of anything engaging. It truly is a tale of waiting for the light that never came.
In the grand scheme of things, these faults permanently tarnish what could have been a phenomenal record. The lack of vibrancy and energy is costly however, and instead feels very one dimensional, repetitive and nothing to look forward to on repeated listens. Not being able to tell the difference 10, 40 and 70 minutes in honestly detrimental and frustrating too. Whilst I acknowledge that there are more angles of looking at this, such as its undeniably good lyrics, without a foundation to stand on it's not going to make this album a better listen in the slightest and that's its truest flaw. It's certainly admirable but after the 80 minutes it had to offer, I'm still right here as bored as ever.
