Music has certainly gone downhill in the past twenty years, but it's not like Tool is in any way removed from that.
For Chrissakes, they're mainstream rock from the 90s and they didn't/don't even have the common deceny to try and throw some variance of sound in there like the Smashing Pumpkins did.
I mean, sure, they weren't as bad as the early-mid 90s grunge pump where every band sounded like Pearl Jam for 3 years before Nirvana ruined the party by "reinventing" (the f*&% ?) pop punk, or the current nu-metal epidemic that's been plaguing the American music scene for the past 4 years, but it's not like they're revolutionary or special in any sense of the word. Taking grunge riffs and adding a hint of industrialism and, every now and again, a xylophone, does not make you an artist.
It's well produced and well packaged, complete with generic weird imagery that makes angsty adolescent high schoolers feel really tuned in because it matches their all Hot Topic wardrobe. I mean, the eyes are the pathway to the *soul*....or something.
If some of you out there are silly enough to mistake "purposefully cyptic" with "artful", then I'm just going to keep on chuckling while you keep shelling out dollars.
Hell, if you ever listened to A Perfect Circle, it becomes almost impossible to deny the fact that it's as cookie cutter as any of its sibling rock - the music is damn near the same, excepting the fact that APC cleans up the distortion a little bit more in post production.
Wow.
It's like a whole new band.
Like I said, I have no problem with either band. I've I-tuned many Tool tracks, and I even bought Mer De Noms off the shelf back when it was first released. It's rather enjoyable as mainstream, heavy pop, but don't take it as anything more than that or you're deluding yourself.
But, you know, don't tell that to every 14 - 18 year old skater punk and goth in America. They'd be crushed.