But whatever the words mean, the way he sings them will imprint them on the back of your brain. “ Two times in I’ve been struck dumb by a voice that / Speaks from deep beneath the endless water,” might be the most stereotypical burst of Tool-branded surrealism that’s come out of Manyard’s mouth yet. The favourite song of high school maths teachers the world over. It does have pockets that feel ever so slightly rote, none of which are helped by the bloated length - there’s a ten minute version of this song out there somewhere that’s about ten times better.īut still, even Keenan at his least concise has a power other musicians could only dream of. One of the longest tracks on Tool’s long-awaited and surprisingly good Fear Inoculum, ‘Descending’ has all the complexity and wry meanness that you’d expect from the band. ‘Chocolate Chip Trip’ĭo you think those are Maynard’s wind chimes at the beginning there? #46. The gentle muzak that you hear piped through a massage parlour, as re-recorded by Satan. It’s kinda funny, I guess, but it’s the kind of punchline that’s less and less appealing the more you think about it. Not much more than an elaborate prank, ‘Die Eier von Satan’ is a weed cookie recipe translated into German and made to sound as comically threatening as possible. It’s not bad, exactly, but it certainly feels like it ever-so-slightly overstates itself, particularly with that ornate, flowery chorus. Like Tool tried to write a showtune from a musical about rot. It’ll get under your skin, and do terrible things there.
Maybe the most insidious of all of Tool’s little inter-album skits, ‘Message to Harry Manback’ is a noirish, gilded threat.