I’ve got a particular interest here because 5 years ago I’d have given them a ‘1’ and then ignored the thread. They’re a band it took me a full 15-20 years of infrequent attempts to “get”. Once it connected, it really connected.
How much of the 5 I’m giving them is based on how much I actually like them and how much of it is based on how, objectively, good they are as a band is a separate debate. I rarely sit and listen to an album all the way through but they’re also not a band where you can just ‘play the hits’.
I think Lateralus is one of the best produced, mixed, and mastered rock albums of the 21st century. It could come out today and still sound better than a lot of the shite that’s come in the twenty(!!) years since its release.
It also takes a special band to write one of ‘those’ riffs where regardless of whether you like or even know the band/song, you recognise it, yet anyone who was in a local band at anytime between 2001 and 2010 knows that ‘Schism’ is Sweet Child O’Mine for bassists.
They’ll get a kicking here and, yes, there’s a LOT that’s silly about them. From their uniquely and consistently terrible album art to the hundred-pound shitty-video-screen CD version of Fear Incoculum; but I do think that Tool fans are what people are annoyed by, more than Tool themselves.
But I’d posit that they are no more or less silly than any number of the V SRS BANDS who are held in godlike esteem by these boards, and if given the choice I would infinitely prefer to be stuck in a room with the back catalogue of Tool on a loop than some sad boi guitar nerds like The National or whatever
