LONDON LISTENING SESSIONS
From Andy King, TotalRock… New Album playback at 10, Golborne Road, London W10 -
February 20th 2006... 4pm and 7.30pm
There is something delightfully Toolian about staging a series of European album
press/radio playback and ‘meet-the-new-Record-Company’ dates whilst not only not revealing the name of said new album but also keeping all the track titles
themselves firmly under wraps.
It’s a joy – in this day and age and with such a multi-million selling global
mega-band (yes, it really is true, fans!) – to immediately bump into ¾ of the
band casually swigging beer from bottles (or, somewhat surprisingly, Starbucks
from a paper cup in Maynard’s case) and chatting amiably with the assembled
mid-afternoon gathering of hacks. It’s always a joy to meet a man so much ‘his
own man’ and Maynard, as usual, manages to take such an expression to dizzy new heights. As inscrutable as the person offspring of Chairman Mao and Wallace & Gromit’s Were Rabbit (slightly caught in the headlights of my immediate and presumptuous ‘hail fellow well met’ self-introduction) Maynard professes to
‘feeling a little jet-lagged’ and at once hops off to safer environs. Meanwhile
big haired Danny and Justin look, for all the world, like a brace of *******
hippies from the Bong Shop down the road. As has been revealed – Adam has
remained in LA ‘directing the video’.
After a 30 minute delay in proceedings – caused by a tardy and self-important
bunch of hacks creeping out of some rank corner of the evil EMAP Empire (they’re
all Borgs, we suspect) the Anonymous Playback of The Nameless Songs commences…‘probably nearly in their Final Running Order’, we are told. Readers will, hopefully, forgive any inaccuracies in reportage. On first listen I surmised
this was an 9 track album, managing to squeeze this figure up to 10 on second
hearing, whilst having confirmation from the band that it was, in fact an 11
track album. (They thought).
Track 1 (7min 3sec). Mesmeric start. Hypnotic beat. Jagged, angular off beats.
Familiar trancey passages punctuated by a guitar part reminiscent of an older
Tool track. Tribal drum beats f@!# with a lovely melody and climax with
Maynard’s vocals. I am going to cry.
Track 2 (7min 12sec) Melodic intro with almost balladic vocals from Maynard.
Lighter feel (almost, dare I say it, APC-tinged) but not for long. Danny gets
stronger – Baresi releases our tubthumper and the feel gets much heavier into
‘chugga chugga’ off beats. Then – here’s some unusual guitar work. Man, it’s
almost Hendix-like! Then back into a heavy tribal groove. I fight off the urge
to masturbate furiously.
Track 3/4 (This is either one 17 minute monster or two tracks – of 6min 20sec
and 10min 26sec – only the Gods Of The Stinfist know the answer). Whichever it
is – DO NOT SMOKE THE WEED WHILST LISTENING TO IT! Starting with Buddhist
temple-flavoured gong tweaking the collective nipples of Kraftwerk, a deep
sphincter-rumbling bass and om chanting might recall ‘Parabol’. After 3 minutes
of this nerve-wracking niceness, all Hell breaks loose with mega-heavy riffdom
before slipping back into spaciness after 30 seconds. Like an epileptic
convulsion in a night of deep sleep. Hawkwind does Greensleeves whilst Pink
Floys look on. The Record Company people are starting to look nervous and
uncomfortable as if they have seldom HEARD anything so strange and worrying.
What the f@!# is this? Let me outta here! I need to go snuggle the Radio One
Playlist! Suddenly it’s a crazed sea shanty for whacked-out space travelers.
‘You’re the only one who can hold your head up high. It’s my time now… my time
now… give me my… give me my…’ duets Maynard with himself. Danny fights free of
the evil clutches of Dr Baresi and goes off on one. Adam’s guitar recalls
something off Lateralus again. It’s Triad, I think, but it’s almost impossible
to identify one riff whilst another song goes on. The musical equivalent of
rubbing one’s head and tummy simultaneously in different directions. They’re
doing this on purpose to f@!# with our heads. Bastards! Returns to full-on
rhythmic Toolishness to end. No it isn’t the end. It doesn’t end like any other
song ends. Tool never ends. I’m losing it. Therap me now, please.
Track 5 (Probably. 6min 11 sec definitely). Oooooooh. This is THE one. Ya know
what, pluggers? Radio might even go for this! Maynard’s vocals at the start are
quite extraordinary. Place equal parts of Chris De Burgh, Tiny Tim and Bilal The
Muezzin in a blender and run for your life. Easily the most commercial track to
date. In fact, easily the most commercial track Tool have EVER done. That guitar
is waaay strong again. Did Adam bribe Baresi? This is still twisted. It’s hard
but commercial. The end spells a relief as climactic as a boil bursting. I go
‘Yessssss’ and the whole room of cool jouros looks round at me as if I’m a
Bateman cartoon ‘The Man Who Ordered A Pork Sandwich In Blooms’. This is a
SERIOUSLY awesome track. Just you mark my words.
Track 6 (1min). In which Maynard becomes a Native American for no good reason.
Strange, but we like a bit of strangeness.
Track 7 (Maybe. Could be two medium length tracks and a terribly short one, too.
I’m now losing the will to live with the stopwatch. It’s 14min 45sec of music,
whatever). Guitars to the fore again. One long note with almost blues-like,
overlaid note progressions. f@!# me, it’s House Of The Rising Sun cut with
Ketamine. There are unsettling whispers and talking. Is this a bad trip or a
psychiatry session? Come to think of it, is there a difference? ‘How Are You
Today?’… ‘Tell Me Everything’ then THWACK! Into such a breathtakingly slappy,
powerful riff kick that I’m actually physically winded for a nanosecond.
Demonic, growling, rap noise over rhythmic heavy heavy groove. Forget the Were
Rabbit jibe. This is a f@!# full-on, nasty, shaven headed WEREWOLF. A lightbulb
goes mental in the room. The Record Company almost lose all cool and run for it.
I damn nearly join them but now I AM crying. I am gulping back wracking sobs at
the sheer Toolishness of this monstrous, magnificent track. This is the real
deal. Again snippets from Lateralus. You ARE playing with us. You ARE! This is
Tool’s equivalent of ‘spot the Hitchcock in the Hitchcock film’! But I don’t
care. It’s like The Best Of Tool in one song. The Bomb. It ends like the violent
end of a violent life. And then it ends again. Unless that’s another track, of
course….
Track 8 (6min 44sec). Odd noises. Sea shore meets ironworks. Ever see the
cartoon meisterwerk ‘Spirited Away’? You MUST! In it there is a character called
Kamajii The Boiler Keeper who has 6 arms and an army of small black coals. This
sound is similar. Soon joined by elastic bass and drum twangling over
multi-layered Maynard whisperings and chanted vox. Shades of Pink Floyd again.
Shades of the more ‘moody’ Lateralus tracks again. Reflection. Disposition.
Tribal and hypnotic.
Track 9 (9min 04sec. I think). Melodic, slow, hypnotic. Almost balladic. Wall of
Sound build-up. Danny does some Bamboo pole-type drumming into big rif***e. Big, big sound. Tool at their weightiest. It’s almost Chinese at the end. I can think
of worse things to be like. Perhaps the boys have their eyes on the World’s
fastest developing market?
Track 10 (OK it’s 11 but I’m f@!# if I can work out how we got here). The walk
out track (their description not mine). Oddness. The Noodles of Satan.
And that’s it. First playback and Maynard bids us farewell. ‘Hope you enjoyed
it. If you didn’t we could put on a little Green Day for you?’. Second playback
and Justin apologises for not being The Arctic Monkeys. We smoodge and chatter.
We remember that Danny is actually the World’s nicest (and tallest) man. If only
I could feel as comfy in my skin as he does. That’s it – go on, compare my
insides with his outsides. We rejoice in the fact that ¼ of Tool is, in fact,
English. We clamber onto our pushbike past legions of hoodies whilst the Tool
Carnival ups and offs to Amsterdam. f@!# knows where THAT playback will take
place but I have a shrewd idea or two…
And please.. No political banter here.
