Tool's previous album AEnema is one of my favourites. It's fantastic. It's damn near perfection. So Tool was always going to have a tought time impressing me with their new album.
When I first heard Lateralus for the first few times I hated it. Thought it was complete and utter trash with none of the brilliance of AEnema. I hated the production. I hated what they've done to Maynards voice. I hate the weak muffled sounding guitars. I thought the drumming was pure wank. I hated Maynards singing style throughout. It was too damn long. I just couldn't get into it.
So I went back and listened to AEnema and damn it, I hated Lateralus even more because it had somehow managed to make me dislike parts of my favourite album. I spoted massive chunks of Lateralus in AEnema and I didn't like it. Another listen and I was over it but it wasn't a pleasent experience.
The big problem I had with Lateralus was that it was AEnema, but it wasn't. It was the big guitar sound, the quiet to sudden extreme shock value, the way Maynard sings but doesn't seem to be listening to the music. It was almost a parody of Tool. Like many a band's "big album follow up", it sounds like they're playing themselves but not very well.
That is entirely too harsh and I know it. But it will not change the fact that I will never get into this album. Whenever I listen to it for a while, then stop I find myself singing Tool songs from AEnema, not from Lateralus. Lateralus serves nothing for me but a reminder of how amazing AEnema is. I feel I hold AEnema on such a high pedestal that I'll never be able to appreciate Lateralus for what others seem to think it is. When I listen to it (or Opiate or Undertow) I always think, "what the hell am I doing listening to this" and put on AEnema. I know that they're good. I appreciate that they're good. But they're not as good as AEnema.
I used to feel this way about Soundgarden's Down On The Upside and recently rediscovered how good it is. Maybe one day I'll do the same for Lateralus.
Quite often I have trouble believing I'm here. It has a lot to do with my eyesight. The world I live in is blury, often through only one eye and covered in a smattering of black dots and lines, the results of staring at the sun, or a lightbulb, or a camera flash when young. The same stupidity that leaves me with a constant ringing in my ears. A ringing that will only get worse. Cap guns and experimental children do no mix.
Photography on the other hand, and more real, the TV image is something I can focus on. The image of myself in photos is the real me... but I can't see him. I never see myself in mirrors.
When I watch my girlfriend stare me in the face, I know what she is seeing, but at the same time I don't. I know she's thinking the same thing.
This is Bruce's (our ex-drummer) band. They're playing their first gig. I'm absolutely facinated. They practice much more than Walken ever did and seem to have a lot more finished songs. I remember being blown away and humbled by them as a band, back when Heath and I had never tried the full band thing. Of course, then we did create a band and discovered, it ain't that hard (yuk yuk yuk)...