The liner notes included references to dissociative anesthesia through ketamine as well as Timothy Leary, "futants", ritual magic, and religious fundamentalism. These segues are "Useful Idiot", "Message to Harry Manback", "Intermission", "Die Eier von Satan", "Cesaro Summability", and "(-) Ions". Several of the songs are short segues or interludes that connect to longer songs, pushing the total duration of the CD towards the maximum of around 80 minutes. Promotional singles were issued, in order of release, for " Stinkfist", " H.", " Ænema" and " Forty-Six & 2" with just the first and third receiving music videos.
The title Ænima is a combination of the words ' anima' (Latin for 'soul' and associated with the ideas of "life force", and a term often used by psychologist Carl Jung) and ' enema', the medical procedure involving the injection of fluids into the rectum. Ænima is Tool's first studio album with former Peach bassist Justin Chancellor. 18 on its list of The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time. In 2003, Ænima was ranked the sixth most influential album of all time by Kerrang! Rolling Stone listed the album at No. The track Ænema won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 1998. The album appeared on several lists of the best albums of 1996, including that of Kerrang! and Terrorizer. It was certified triple platinum by the RIAA on March 4, 2003. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart upon its initial release, selling 148,000 copies in its first week. The album was produced by David Bottrill. The album was recorded and cut at Ocean Way Recording in Hollywood and The Hook in North Hollywood from 1995 to 1996.
It was released in vinyl format on September 17, 1996, and in compact disc format on October 1, 1996, through Zoo Entertainment. “Attack – release – attack” is the blueprint of effective hard rock this record takes a noble, ultimately unsuccessful swing at subverting that (shouts out to “Rosetta Stoned,” the craziest song I’ve heard in some time).Ænima ( / ˈ ɑː n ɪ m ə/ AH-ni-mə) is the second studio album by American rock band Tool. 10,000 Days has more of this low-end tumbling than any other album, and while it propels the paranoia and possibilities of Lateralus, it also makes the album feel a little bit like a fuse that burns out right before it blows up. It feels dismissive to even classify it as a hard rock album because it’s so rare to hear this level of fearless, confident complexity in popular rock (“Lateralus” might the best song in the catalog).Ī hallmark of Tool, as it moved from grunge-metal into jazzy power rock exploring the cosmic possibilities of time (or whatever) is thundering, almost tribal drums. Lateralus brings that into focus for me it is an incredible album that combines the paranoia of the darkest X-Files episodes and the boundless creativity of late 70s Zeppelin or Hawkwind. In high school, most of the Tool fans I knew were kids who were big into conspiracy theories, black sweatshirts and hair gel. Luckily, those hard rocking songs (“Stinkfist” and “Hooker with a Penis”) kick ass like Motorhead on a ketamine & Metallica binge. Ænima has nods toward the progressive mantle the band would take up on its next two albums – “Forty Six & 2” specifically comes to mind – but it overall sound like a hard rock band experimenting rather than an experimental band that rocks hard. Given that, before this experiment, the majority of my exposure to Tool was from deeply upsetting music videos, it is striking how conventional the band sounds on its first two records. “Sober,” the big single from Undertow, is an ideal way to understand what Tool was bringing to the table in the early Clinton years – namely, heavy rock filtered through a timely grunge perspective. For reasons that I cannot even explain myself ( Governors Ball?), I am starting this exercise with Tool, the band that launched a thousand message boards in 90s and 2000s. One of my resolutions for 2017 is to fill in some of the gaps in my musical knowledge rather than keep up with the trends of the day, the focus will be on making sense of some of foundational acts that I’ve missed.