Tool\'s triumphant return

It has been five long years since Tool's last outing. Faced with legal troubles and various side projects, the band finally regrouped in order to create Lateralus, a 79-minute adventure in sound.\nAfter such a prolonged absence, Tool needed something amazing to bring the masses back. Treating this as a call to action, the band went all out in creating Lateralus, not only with stellar music, but also in presentation. Lateralus plays in High Definition (20-bit, as compared to the standard 16-bit) so listeners can experience the album in a more precise way. The album comes in a special sleeve, which reveals transparent liner notes featuring some cool artwork.\nFilled with obscure timing structures, tribal rhythms and metaphysical philosophy, Lateralus diverges from Ænima only in a sense of increasing musical maturity. Not to imply any immaturity on Tool's part, the band has always been groundbreaking in its work on the musical market, but Lateralus creates an entirely new experience on a completely new level.\nTracks like "The Grudge," "Parabola," and the album's first single, "Schism," with their heavy edge, hold the closest resemblance to classic Tool tracks such as "Stinkfist" and "Prison Sex." But the sheer musical ingenuity contained within Lateralus' tracks make Tool's previous creations sound like radio-friendly pop tracks at best.\nTool has always made a point of showcasing the music as well as the vocals, and Lateralus is filled with instrumental interludes as well as purely instrumental full-length tracks. "Ticks & Leeches" begins with a drum track and quickly turns into a hard rocker, then, for two and a half minutes, a mellow, dim guitar solo before letting loose with the grunge again. While the hard-to-soft model has pervaded grunge ever since its glory days, Lateralus weaves in and out of tempos, volumes and moods more gracefully than Nirvana or Soundgarden ever could.\nLateralus, with its common themes and interwoven tracks, feels more like a true album than a collection of singles. The album provides for a continuous listening experience, making track skipping unnecessary.\n"Is this what you wanted? Cuz this is what you're getting," screams frontman Maynard James Keenan in "Ticks & Leeches." \nWhile perhaps unexpected in pure scope, Tool fans wanted another album and Lateralus promises not to disappoint.