[5/5] Tool haven't spent the past five years since their genre-shattering opus, Lateralus, reliving the '90s, jockeying for the Ozzfest crowd or rewriting "Prison Sex." Rather, 10,000 Days finds the band more obsessed than ever with their search for that ever-more meditative, percussive, driving, chanting, whispering, aching, bubbling nirvana--and trampling just about every other band who've ever attempted an amplified palm mute in the process. "Vicarious," an overt attack on TV-induced apathy, starts the disc sounding like Meshuggah on morphine. "Jambi" and "Wings For Marie (Pt 1)" are mishmashes of thrash, psychedelia and chugging goth with fuzzy guitar solos--an apt description for Tool's whole catalog, to be sure, but realized here like never before. And, as the album progresses, songs such as "Lipian Conjuring" and the mostly instrumental "Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)" are dreamy beyond even the most shoegazing of band's comprehension, so much so that the more uptempo, creepy-crawly rocker "Rosetta Stoned" sounds like Slayer by comparison. In fact, there's so much trippy, esoteric dementia to absorb on 10,000 Days that, by the time the direct (for this band, at least) anti-war wordplay of "Right In Two" arrives at the album's end, it's like a splash of cold water in the face. As with everything in Tool's oeuvre, 10,000 Days packs enough beauty, heartache and triumph that it will be dissected, studied and envied by younger bands for years to come. Luckily, those of us who aren't in bands don't have to tremble: We get to enjoy Tool in a jealousy-free stupor instead.
(ZOO/VOLCANO) Ryan J. Downey
 Official Website: http://www.zoorecords.com
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