10,000 DAYS

The tongue-in-cheek likeability of the first two songs aside, 10,000 Days is not consistent with the extreme creativity and songwriting prowess Tool displayed on their previous two albums. Many of the songs seem to be crafted with the intent of appealing to the heartstrings of fans, delivering recycled ideas and sounds which could easily of fit into either Aenima or Laterlus. A few new textures here and there do not make up for the other 60 minutes of straight-forward Tool.

While I find very little here that is actually bad (the Pot is about the worst song they've recorded)-- none of it connects or resonates as strongly as their previous material. Keenan's lyrics as, taken as whole, boring; not as smart or scathing as before. He puts his heart into a lot of the delivery, but he comes off as sounding contrived. Jones gives us a few new sounds to listen to, but Chancellor and Carrey seem to phoning this one in.

For me, this album is redeemed by the extended pieces (Wings and Rosetta), but not by much. Maybe our expectations are simply too high, or maybe ten thousand days just wasn't enough for the band to recharge their energy. Either way, this one definitely comes after Aenima and Lateralus.

Songwriting: 3 Instrumental Performances: 3 Lyrics/Vocals: 3 Style/Emotion/Replay: 3