VINIL Sony Music Tool - Undertow

Loudwire:

When Tool released their debut full-length album, Undertow, on April 6, 1993, via the label Zoo Entertainment, the band members weren’t exactly the same dudes who are currently putting together their long-awaited fifth album. Back then, they were a little more prolific in their musical output. The members wrote much of Undertow at the same time as they were hashing out songs for their 1992 debut EP Opiate. But instead of making an effort to include them on the bludgeoning EP, which featured four studio recordings and two live tracks, Tool kept them in a state of incubation and returned to them when they entered the studio with Sylvia Massey to record their first full album.

“We got together pretty quickly, and so a lot of the songs that ended up on the first release and the second one were first efforts,” says vocalist Maynard James Keenan. “We were just feeling each other out, so they were more compact and to the point. But at the same time we were quickly growing and some of the more adventurous stuff on Undertow was actually what was occurring after about a year of us being together.”

The palpable angst and skewed, propulsive drive that tore through songs like “Sober,” “Prison Sex” and “Undertow” were inspired in part by the tidal force of the ‘90s alt-rock/metal scene that was building across the country. The album also expressed the frustrations the band members were facing before they achieved popularity. Even though Tool -- Keenan, guitarist Adam Jones, bassist Paul D’Amour and drummer Danny Carey -- had scored a label deal and were starting to make a mark for themselves, they were hamstrung by one-sided contracts, internal conflicts and an initial shortage of compatible touring acts.

“I was busting my ass working on movie sets in Hollywood trying to survive,” Keenan says. “Rent was high and there was a lot of weird hypocrisy that happens with both the film and music industries. There was a whole dog and pony show which I found very awkward. So, a lot of those original pieces were inspired by that kind of energy. The music was emotionally driven and very reactionary.”

On Undertow, muscular constructions and emotional purging were more prominent than they were on later releases, which featured more textural arrangements and ebb and flow atmospheres. Still, there was more to Undertow artistically than mere bludgeoning. The songs consisted of multiple rhythm and tempo shifts, Keenan was a more expressive, mercurial and melodic frontman than most of his peers; Jones layered guitar parts and exhibited restraint that added to the moodiness of the songs; and Carey played a variety of beats that kept the music heavy, but constantly compelling.