So Tool has announced a series of concert dates which is kinda cool. I'd like to see them again, as the last time I saw them was like 15 years ago when I used to be a huge fan of the band.
However, they're releasing tickets through ticketmaster, which these days just translates to "stubhub but at 5x face value".
I saw Tool back in 06 and it was hands down one of the worst shows I've ever been too. They're at the top of my list of bands I'll never understand the appeal of.
Hail of Bullets broke up. Oh well, they'd just end up putting out another album which sounds the same, or just sounding more and more like Asphyx meets Bolt Thrower anyway.
I saw Tool back in 06 and it was hands down one of the worst shows I've ever been too. They're at the top of my list of bands I'll never understand the appeal of.
I saw them back in 2001 with Fantomas as the opener. They performed their songs perfectly well, but I actually found watching them to be pretty boring. It probably didn't help that Fantomas was the opener. Watching Mike Patton perform Fantomas songs flawlessly was quite a sight to behold.
I'm enjoying Dead Shores Rising quite a bit, perhaps a bit more than the 7/10 that @autothrall gave it, but time will tell...
For some reason I thought I heard that Maynard died, but my interest in Tool died before A Perfect Circle was a thing thanks to all the super annoying fans I knew who fucking ruined that shit with ridiculous levels of overplaying and boredom with everything they released after Undertow.
Setting my opinion of Tool's music aside, fuck TicketMaster and the fucking scalpers that (actually) run it.
Master Boot Record - C:\>COPY *.* A: /V is a pretty cool instrumental/chiptune/synthwave industrial metal album, but as usual with no-vox purveyors, I wish there was vox. https://masterbootrecord.bandcamp.com/
You can nab all 5 albums for five Euros, if you enjoy.
Check out tracks from the previous album! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw48zzoT3kY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Vg99NAiGw
I saw Tool back in 06 and it was hands down one of the worst shows I've ever been too. They're at the top of my list of bands I'll never understand the appeal of.
I used to be an absolute fanboy for Tool. I have since changed my opinion, but they've still released some pretty awesome songs.
I just can't listen to an entire album of theirs now without getting restless.
Hail of Bullets broke up. Oh well, they'd just end up putting out another album which sounds the same, or just sounding more and more like Asphyx meets Bolt Thrower anyway.
At least they gave us some killer records.
Truth be told, I wouldn't have been that interested in an album without van Drunen anyway.
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TerribleMisathrope23rd Degree IntiateAt The Right Hand Of The Seven HornsRegistered Userregular
I saw Tool back in 06 and it was hands down one of the worst shows I've ever been too. They're at the top of my list of bands I'll never understand the appeal of.
I used to be an absolute fanboy for Tool. I have since changed my opinion, but they've still released some pretty awesome songs.
I just can't listen to an entire album of theirs now without getting restless.
That pretty much sums it up for me as well, I'm just more prone to hyperbole and I really, really hate TicketMaster. Also, Tool was the only metal band I listened to when I was a fanboy.
Tool really hit a sweet spot there in the 90s though. I think we take for granted how accessible good music is these days. I feel like I've found more excellent albums in the last 4-5 years than I did in the previous 20. Part of that is the internet and things like youtube, spotify, bandcamp, etc.
At the time though, Tool was like one of the few metal (or at least quasi metal) bands that got any radio airtime. Plus on top of that, their songs were fairly complex and musically interesting, which says a lot when compared to some of their contemporaries at the time. Like when the choice is Tool, or Foo Fighters, or Chevelle or Econoline Crush, it's easy to see why and how Tool got as big as they did. I still really like almost their entire back catalog, but I also get restless after listening to a song or two of theirs now. And I'm not particularly excited about any new forthcoming albums from them, but I'll probably give them a listen or two in the same way I did for the new Metallica.
I'd have liked to see them live although I didn't really enjoy them that much when I saw them years ago as much as I thought I would. Plus, fuck ticketmaster to death.
In other news, bought my tickets to see Amorphis and Swallow the Sun in two weeks. Never heard the latter, but have heard of them. Local openers are Earthen and Varaha, who I know little about. I listened to some Earthen stuff on bandcamp and it seemed OK.
And I was surprised to see the Opeth/Gojira/Dean Townsend show in Chicago has sold out. It's two months away! Fortunately we were planning on driving to Indianapolis to see that one anyway since it's on a more convenient day.
Fortunately we were planning on driving to Indianapolis to see that one anyway since it's on a more convenient day.
Guess I'll see you there
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TerribleMisathrope23rd Degree IntiateAt The Right Hand Of The Seven HornsRegistered Userregular
edited March 2017
Agreed, Sober and Stinkfist still rule, but like with Nirvana or Sonic Youth or any of the other 90's bands I was into and similar to a number of you, I can only listen to a few Tool tracks before I'm compelled to move on.
In more disturbing news, I'm enjoying the latest from Darkest Hour and Lorna Shore very much.
Edit: Thanks to you guys that mentioned them ITT! \m/
SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
I was partially inspired by this thread and decided to listen to Tool's 10,000 Days while playing a game last night and I barely remember any of it. Both of their post-Ænima albums basically did nothing for me, but I try to revisit them every few years to see if things have changed.
TerribleMisathrope23rd Degree IntiateAt The Right Hand Of The Seven HornsRegistered Userregular
edited March 2017
I have trouble even recalling what was on Ænima let alone the follow-ups, which I never listened to on purpose though I have heard them.
I always found Ænima to be far less engaging and authentic than Undertow. Though I know a large contingent of folks who really love it and would gladly and loudly declare that Tool's apical album, it simply never stuck or got interesting for me.
Edit: In a nutshell, Undertow had the capacity to actually fully creep me out and haunt me (and impart lots of ASMR), like a good piece of horror should, and I got no lasting emotional impressions whatsoever from Ænima. Zilch.
SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
I didn't actually listen to Ænima when it came out. I didn't like "Stinkfist" when I first heard it, so I had no interest in checking out the full album and I was busy diving deeper into more extreme metal anyway. A few years later I heard the title track and really liked it and eventually bought the CD. But honestly? "Stinkfist" and the title track are the only two songs I can name without looking at a tracklist, unless you also count "Die Eier von Satan."
I didn't actually listen to Ænima when it came out. I didn't like "Stinkfist" when I first heard it, so I had no interest in checking out the full album and I was busy diving deeper into more extreme metal anyway. A few years later I heard the title track and really liked it and eventually bought the CD. But honestly? "Stinkfist" and the title track are the only two songs I can name without looking at a tracklist, unless you also count "Die Eier von Satan."
46 & 2.
I'm not sure how anyone can forgot that damn song and its bassline.
SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
Suddenly I just had a flashback of Blind Melon being featured on MTV's Headbanger's Ball. That was weird. "No Rain" comes on and it's the first time I'm seeing it and I expect this happy-sounding song to turn sinister, but nope!
W.A.S.P. is good, nasty 80s heavy metal up through The Headless Children, and a lot of people LOVE the following album, The Crimson Idol, as well. It's all very simple, sleazy stuff though, just has a personality to go with it.
So I was listening to The Headless Children yesterday, and between that and Crimson Idol, there is some really, really good stuff. Simple and sleazy, like you said. But "The Heretic (The Lost Child)" is a great opener on the former, and "Arena of Pleasure," "Chainsaw Charlie," and "Doctor Rockter" are all really strong. Blackie was an awesome frontman, and I love the raspiness of his vocals.
Also, holy shit, Bob Kulick, brother of KISS alum Bruce Kulick, played lead on Crimson Idol. What a cool connection.
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TerribleMisathrope23rd Degree IntiateAt The Right Hand Of The Seven HornsRegistered Userregular
Hey now, let's not equate Sonic Youth with inferior bands (I mean, I like some Tool and Nirvana stuff, but come on.) :P
Fair enough.
Sonic Youth is virtually peerless, but like those other two, after several decades of familiarity I tend to just not be able to hang through a whole album, even though I fully recognize their excellence. In fairness, far more staying power with Sonic Youth albums than any other 90's rock band, imo, but, at the same time, arguing that they were the best of that era is NOT a stretch for me, so YMMV.
Now I got a Sonic Youth hankerin'. Man, I fucking love those cats.
Edit: When they used to come through Lawrence, Kansas all the time my brother got to know them really well and was a backstage regular who got to play video games with Thurston a bunch. Still jealous, but his best friend's dad is still a local musician so they had loads of access like I could only dream of.
surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
im seeing devin townsend on friday, i fully expect him to destroy live - all the recordings ive seen of him have had him nailing all the notes cleanly which is pretty amazing
im seeing devin townsend on friday, i fully expect him to destroy live - all the recordings ive seen of him have had him nailing all the notes cleanly which is pretty amazing
Don't let the laid back metal nerd persona he exudes fool you, I've seen him live 3 times with SYL, once with DTB, and once with DTP, and had a chance to chat with him twice, he is a full-on perfectionist in all aspects of his craft, regardless if it's instruments or vocals. This is a guy that's recorded with the likes of Vai (granted, primarily vocals, but he also helped with production and tracking on Sex and Religion), did the one man band thing for the SYL debut, and continues to be as meticulous at multi-tracking his guitar lines as Hansi Kirsch is with his choruses.
His feeling on things is if he can't do it as flawless as possible live, he won't do it live. And seeing him live has made me appreciate a lot of his studio work all the more, because going back and listening to a lot of tracks after those concerts made me realize that even with sometimes double digit guitar-tracks playing at once he always left a single throughline he could navigate live and not make the track sound less than it was on the album. That's some god-tier shit. And his vocals have also always been spot on, I've heard him take a slight bit off some of his highs, especially more recently, but that's about the only blemish I can think of.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
Gothic ww2 zombie chaos viking funeral? Ticks all my boxes!
Went to see Devin Townsend play in Manchester the other night, alongside Tesseract and Leprous.
DTP was exactly how BlackDragon described them, total musical perfection. The sound guy actually kinda fucked up the start with everything being way too quiet, but once the levels were right it was like a great big wall of metal coming at you. I think the best way to describe it would be a bizarre comedy homage to all things heavy metal. He also totally teased playing Love and then didn't, grr! Despite that it was impossible to come away from seeing them without a giant grin on your face.
Tesseract were there usual ridiculous selves. I'm not generally a huge djent fan, but these guys put out really infectious technical grooves and are tighter than a gnats butthole live. My buddy was saying how they practised for 4 or 5 years or something before ever playing a gig. Sounds crazy, but it clearly paid off!
And then of course Leprous, who were basically the reason I was there. Holy fucking fuck. It sounds bizarre to say, since The Congregation was one of my favourite albums of last year, but this band is so much better live than recorded. I think they made a lot of fans that night. Their 35 minute set was over way too quickly. They also had a bizarre change to Rewind, completely cutting out the last 30 seconds or so with the rough vocals. I was getting ready to headbang so hard that I'd headbutt the floor and they just cut it and started another song. Trés strange n'est pas?
The Memoriam cover reminds me quite a bit of Zdzisław Beksiński. Except for the more modern items in the picture. I bought some Zdzisław Beksiński prints awhile back that I still need framed so yeah, I'm totally digging that cover. Looking at other Dan Seagrave stuff, this seems to be a little abnormal for him.
Zdzisław's work is bloody excellent. I had few bits of his work in my desktop background rotation before finding out it was all the same guy and he has fucking shit tons of excellent stuff.
There's some adventure game app, I forget the name, came out a couple years ago and has art inspired very heavily by Zdzislaw, worth checking out for the atmosphere if you want like a Lovecraftian Myst.
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My Backloggery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOwGRfDcugQ
listen to cloudbusting, running up that hill and the sound that can kill and maybe hounds of love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rb7d_zque0&t=869s
Its like Skynyrd sang about wizards and shit.
However, they're releasing tickets through ticketmaster, which these days just translates to "stubhub but at 5x face value".
At least they gave us some killer records.
I saw them back in 2001 with Fantomas as the opener. They performed their songs perfectly well, but I actually found watching them to be pretty boring. It probably didn't help that Fantomas was the opener. Watching Mike Patton perform Fantomas songs flawlessly was quite a sight to behold.
My Backloggery
I'm enjoying Dead Shores Rising quite a bit, perhaps a bit more than the 7/10 that @autothrall gave it, but time will tell...
For some reason I thought I heard that Maynard died, but my interest in Tool died before A Perfect Circle was a thing thanks to all the super annoying fans I knew who fucking ruined that shit with ridiculous levels of overplaying and boredom with everything they released after Undertow.
Setting my opinion of Tool's music aside, fuck TicketMaster and the fucking scalpers that (actually) run it.
Master Boot Record - C:\>COPY *.* A: /V is a pretty cool instrumental/chiptune/synthwave industrial metal album, but as usual with no-vox purveyors, I wish there was vox.
https://masterbootrecord.bandcamp.com/
You can nab all 5 albums for five Euros, if you enjoy.
Check out tracks from the previous album!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw48zzoT3kY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Vg99NAiGw
try this
I used to be an absolute fanboy for Tool. I have since changed my opinion, but they've still released some pretty awesome songs.
I just can't listen to an entire album of theirs now without getting restless.
Truth be told, I wouldn't have been that interested in an album without van Drunen anyway.
try this
At the time though, Tool was like one of the few metal (or at least quasi metal) bands that got any radio airtime. Plus on top of that, their songs were fairly complex and musically interesting, which says a lot when compared to some of their contemporaries at the time. Like when the choice is Tool, or Foo Fighters, or Chevelle or Econoline Crush, it's easy to see why and how Tool got as big as they did. I still really like almost their entire back catalog, but I also get restless after listening to a song or two of theirs now. And I'm not particularly excited about any new forthcoming albums from them, but I'll probably give them a listen or two in the same way I did for the new Metallica.
I'd have liked to see them live although I didn't really enjoy them that much when I saw them years ago as much as I thought I would. Plus, fuck ticketmaster to death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdREH1BqGDk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs36hVDImzo
In other news, bought my tickets to see Amorphis and Swallow the Sun in two weeks. Never heard the latter, but have heard of them. Local openers are Earthen and Varaha, who I know little about. I listened to some Earthen stuff on bandcamp and it seemed OK.
And I was surprised to see the Opeth/Gojira/Dean Townsend show in Chicago has sold out. It's two months away! Fortunately we were planning on driving to Indianapolis to see that one anyway since it's on a more convenient day.
My Backloggery
Guess I'll see you there
In more disturbing news, I'm enjoying the latest from Darkest Hour and Lorna Shore very much.
Edit: Thanks to you guys that mentioned them ITT! \m/
try this
My Backloggery
I always found Ænima to be far less engaging and authentic than Undertow. Though I know a large contingent of folks who really love it and would gladly and loudly declare that Tool's apical album, it simply never stuck or got interesting for me.
Edit: In a nutshell, Undertow had the capacity to actually fully creep me out and haunt me (and impart lots of ASMR), like a good piece of horror should, and I got no lasting emotional impressions whatsoever from Ænima. Zilch.
try this
My Backloggery
46 & 2.
I'm not sure how anyone can forgot that damn song and its bassline.
My Backloggery
So I was listening to The Headless Children yesterday, and between that and Crimson Idol, there is some really, really good stuff. Simple and sleazy, like you said. But "The Heretic (The Lost Child)" is a great opener on the former, and "Arena of Pleasure," "Chainsaw Charlie," and "Doctor Rockter" are all really strong. Blackie was an awesome frontman, and I love the raspiness of his vocals.
Also, holy shit, Bob Kulick, brother of KISS alum Bruce Kulick, played lead on Crimson Idol. What a cool connection.
Sonic Youth is virtually peerless, but like those other two, after several decades of familiarity I tend to just not be able to hang through a whole album, even though I fully recognize their excellence. In fairness, far more staying power with Sonic Youth albums than any other 90's rock band, imo, but, at the same time, arguing that they were the best of that era is NOT a stretch for me, so YMMV.
Now I got a Sonic Youth hankerin'. Man, I fucking love those cats.
Edit: When they used to come through Lawrence, Kansas all the time my brother got to know them really well and was a backstage regular who got to play video games with Thurston a bunch. Still jealous, but his best friend's dad is still a local musician so they had loads of access like I could only dream of.
try this
subtly emotional vibes, thrumming irish death metal
https://youtu.be/gv9o_gjGGbs
Don't let the laid back metal nerd persona he exudes fool you, I've seen him live 3 times with SYL, once with DTB, and once with DTP, and had a chance to chat with him twice, he is a full-on perfectionist in all aspects of his craft, regardless if it's instruments or vocals. This is a guy that's recorded with the likes of Vai (granted, primarily vocals, but he also helped with production and tracking on Sex and Religion), did the one man band thing for the SYL debut, and continues to be as meticulous at multi-tracking his guitar lines as Hansi Kirsch is with his choruses.
His feeling on things is if he can't do it as flawless as possible live, he won't do it live. And seeing him live has made me appreciate a lot of his studio work all the more, because going back and listening to a lot of tracks after those concerts made me realize that even with sometimes double digit guitar-tracks playing at once he always left a single throughline he could navigate live and not make the track sound less than it was on the album. That's some god-tier shit. And his vocals have also always been spot on, I've heard him take a slight bit off some of his highs, especially more recently, but that's about the only blemish I can think of.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
Artwork by Dan Seagrave
Memoriam - For the Fallen (2017)
courtesy http://thevisualartofmetal.tumblr.com
Went to see Devin Townsend play in Manchester the other night, alongside Tesseract and Leprous.
DTP was exactly how BlackDragon described them, total musical perfection. The sound guy actually kinda fucked up the start with everything being way too quiet, but once the levels were right it was like a great big wall of metal coming at you. I think the best way to describe it would be a bizarre comedy homage to all things heavy metal. He also totally teased playing Love and then didn't, grr! Despite that it was impossible to come away from seeing them without a giant grin on your face.
Tesseract were there usual ridiculous selves. I'm not generally a huge djent fan, but these guys put out really infectious technical grooves and are tighter than a gnats butthole live. My buddy was saying how they practised for 4 or 5 years or something before ever playing a gig. Sounds crazy, but it clearly paid off!
And then of course Leprous, who were basically the reason I was there. Holy fucking fuck. It sounds bizarre to say, since The Congregation was one of my favourite albums of last year, but this band is so much better live than recorded. I think they made a lot of fans that night. Their 35 minute set was over way too quickly. They also had a bizarre change to Rewind, completely cutting out the last 30 seconds or so with the rough vocals. I was getting ready to headbang so hard that I'd headbutt the floor and they just cut it and started another song. Trés strange n'est pas?
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
Never saw that before. Interesting to compare it to the album's cover art.
My Backloggery
PSN : Bolthorn
Poland is so fucking metal.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
Oh yeah it's called Tormentum.