Personally, my favorites are Opiate and Undertow. The newer stuff they’ve put out just sounds repetitive for some reason. How about everyone else?
Opiate has always been my least favorite of the batch.
Aenima is my favorite; definitely one of my five favorite albums. I found Lateralus to be a bit of a disappointment. I’ll agree with you that it gets pretty repetitive, although there are some standouts (I really like “The Patient”). I could see where you’re coming from feeling that way about Aenima–I do think it could be better if some of the songs were trimmed down a bit. I haven’t listened to Undertow in quite a while–I think it gets a bit boring near the middle there (“Crawl Away” and “Swamp Song” never really did it for me, and I think “Bottom” is a bit long-winded), but “Undertow” and “4 Degrees” are excellent.
I can’t even make it all the way through Lateralus.
Newer = repetitive. Loved Undertow. Grabbed Anima at Kmart on a road trip a couple of weeks ago. Almost fell asleep.
Opiate I love
Undertow I occasionally like
Aenima is good
I havn’t bothered picking up Laterus
I find that the most annoying thing about tool is their fans.
I agree that the albums are certainly all different.
That said, I love Lateralus. Yes, it’s “progressive”, but that’s not a bad thing.
I find Undertow to be more repetitive than any other album.
Ænima was great too.
Studi
Interesting, I really prefer the newer stuff. I tend to view Lateralus as being something of a symphony with 13 movements than a bunch of songs. It’s possible, though, that I’m just making up excuses for the band for why all the songs are in the key of Dm (every single one). Aenima has some really good stuff on it too. “46 & 2”, “Aenima”, “Eulogy” really hit it hard when they get into it, and “Hooker With A Penis” demonstrates some pretty deft use of irony in a rock song.
[somewhat unrelated question]How is Aenima pronounced? I usually say it Ah-nimma. I’ve heard others say it like “enima”. So what is it?[/somewhat unrelated question]
Undertow is my favorite album, all the songs were good. In a way it reminds me of Monster Magnet’s ‘Spine of God’ album - every song has a catchy hook and they are all cool enough to have been the best song on some other album. And like Monster Magnet, their later stuff got boring and repetitive.
I guess it’s how you define “better.” The older ones did seem to burn a bit longer and more evenly, but the new ones give a really neat flash when you first drop them into the fire.