Tool – Ænima

October 1, 1996 • Volcano Records

I'm a bit surprised I actually haven't talked about Tool at all yet. They were my absolute favorite band for an embarrassingly long amount of time, although after 10,000 Days came out I got a bit disillusioned and have barely listened to them much since. Lateralus was always my favorite album and by far the one I listened to the most, though this one got its fair share in the rotation back then. Hearing it now, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, though I know exactly why I don't listen to them anymore.

It's tough to reevaluate an album that you basically have memorized, but even so it's obvious that they aren't nearly as good as I gave them credit for. I (and tons of other people) had always thought of Tool as being some sort of ultra-progressive intellectual band, but most of these songs are pretty straightforward post-grungy rock (they did get a lot of radio play, after all). They do get actually progressive from time to time (e.g. closing track "Third Eye" which is actually pretty darn good, aside from the Bill Hicks samples), but this results in a very inconsistent experience. Sometimes they're serious and introspective, sometimes they're jokey and dumb. The jokey and dumb parts are, by far, the most obnoxious; I did use to think "Hooker with a Penis" (ugh) and "Die Eier von Satan" were fun tracks but they're embarrassing to listen to now.

I wasn't actually able to make it through the full album when writing this review. Half of it is not fun to listen to, and the other half doesn't interest me anyway since I've already heard it a million times. Oh well. Neat jewel case art, though; gotta give them credit for that.

Boris – Noise

June 17, 2014 • Sargent House

Boris has gotten a bit of a bad rap lately. And I can understand it—a string of less-than-exciting albums in 2011 and the stinker that was Präparat last year would be enough to put most people off. And I'll admit I had pretty low expectations for Noise—which is probably why I'm not feeling particularly disappointed with it yet. It's not great, not by a long shot, and it has its share of problems, but I'll take it for now.

Sound-wise, no surprises whatsoever: we still have Boris' standard alternative/stoner metal sound for half the tracks, some kind of post-rock thing for the other half, and remnants of that J-pop melodicism from a few years ago still hanging around. It's kind of like Präparat version 2, one of those mixed-bag albums where every track is a bit different and Boris still seems to be playing around with a lot of different styles because they can't decide on one consistent sound for one album, without really trying to nail the songwriting. At least this time they seem to be a little bit more focused than the last album.

But at the same time they still pull out some really awesome stuff now and again, and there are some moments on this album that make it worth listening to at least once. "Vanilla" has these really short sections where they transition into this super-atmospheric sludgy thing and it's fantastic. The slower post-rock-ish songs and doomy ones like "Heavy Rain" and "Angel" are pretty good as well—they are still pretty good at creating those kind of slow, jamming, crushingly heavy tracks. It's just a bit jarring when they move from one of those straight into something light and poppy like "Taiyo no Baka"; it feels so wrong.

All in all, handful of good riffs, lots of good atmosphere, but not a lot in the way of really great songs. It still feels like they're just going through the motions and I'm not sure if they'll ever put out something truly great again. Or maybe it's just that I really don't like the J-pop influence that creeps in where it doesn't belong. In short, probably exactly what I should have expected. If I didn't always listen to albums in full, this is one that would get severely edited in my library, but it'd still keep a few songs.