Every Tool Album Ranked From Worst to Best
Every Tool Album Ranked From Worst to Best
The first time I heard Tool I knew something was different. Most songs on my local radio station (I’m 900 years old) were short, had definitive verses and hooks and didn’t make me question my spiritual place in the universe. I was an angsty, unpopular teenager in the '90s, so artists like Tool made me feel less emotionally and physically alone.
Time is art’s greatest and most impartial critic. It’s 2019 and Tool is still among the greats. Not only did their music survive the '90s, they as a band stayed together undergoing just one lineup change, swapping bassist Paul D’Amour for Justin Chancellor. He along with singer Maynard James Keenan, guitarist Adam Jones and drummer Danny Carey have consistently toured and very inconsistently released albums for 29 years. Below, I rank their five studio albums, one EP and one live album. Note: the argument can be made (usually by me, to everyone) that Tool has yet to make a bad album, so the following is a ranking of their least perfect to most perfect albums.
7. Opiate
Legacy
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After forming in 1990, Tool recorded a lean and mean six-song EP in Los Angeles under the guidance of producer Silvia Massey. Far from their most inventive work and always last on the list of songs I want to see them play live, Opiate is straightforward, aggressive hard rock from start to finish. On “Hush,” a song about censorship, Maynard sings: “I can't say what I want to / Even if I'm not serious / Things like / Fuck yourself, fuck yourself / You piece of shit.” Not the most poetic songwriting out there, but a clear sign nothing will hold this foursome back.
Key Track: "Opiate"
6. Salival
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Released in between Aenima and Lateralus, Salival is Tool’s only live album to date. For hardcore fans, it was a life raft that gave us hope new material was on its way—and more importantly dispelled rumors the band was breaking up. Before social media you couldn’t bombard Maynard’s Twitter profile until he answered. We just had to wait until an annoying radio DJ with a wacky DJ voice announced a world premiere single. The 1990s were primitive times. Of the nine total tracks, two are covers: “You Lied” from Chancellor’s previous band Peach and Led Zeppelin’s “No Quarter,” the latter being in my opinion better than the original.
At best, Salival showed us they were still creating. My favorite is the re-creation of “Pushit"—an already emotional track slowed down in its first half and brought back around for a big climactic finish. Over the years I find myself going to this version over the original. Salival is the band’s only release inexplicably excluded from streaming platforms, and given its comparative lack of vision and original recordings, that is fine by me.
Key Tracks: "Pushit (live)," "No Quarter"
5. Fear Inoculum
RCA Records
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Holy fucking shit! It finally happened! A brand new Tool album! Time will tell just where this album should ultimately rank. but since two weeks time is not nearly enough time, Fear Inoculum is going right near the middle. I definitely had my concerns, but this group of 50-something alt-metal parents of young alt-metal children who haven’t recorded anything in over a decade are still able to wow us. Fear doesn’t break any new ground, but for a band who has been so far ahead of its time for so long there’s no need. All I wanted was more new Tool that sounded like Tool and I got exactly 86 minutes of it. Instrumentals were tight, crisp, heavy and Maynard’s voice buttery soft and clean. Every song clocks in at proper Tool times: 10 minutes and up. Newer Tool fans with short attention spans (read: Gen Z) might have a hard time focusing, but like Maynard said in a recent interview, this album will require patience. Fear has a hefty 86-minute running time, which might sound daunting, but try going outside sitting in a park and diving into something that doesn’t start with social and end with media.
Key Tracks: "Pneuma," "7empest"
4. 10,000 Days
RCA Records
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We can now call this the predecessor to their latest album as opposed to wondering if 10,000 is the number of days until they release something, anything at all ever again. The album opens with “Vicarious” a screed on media and society’s never-ending bloodlust. But compared to earlier cuts like “Hush,” Maynard’s songwriting and outlook have matured considerably. His lyrics are at their most personal, detailing his mother’s struggles with health problems and her death in “Wings For Marie” and “10,000 Days (Wings Pt.2)." “Right In Two” is a spiritual plea asking why we can’t just get along. Aggressive is still part of the playbook, though. Check out “The Pot” if you’re looking to vent about a hypocrite who did you wrong. "Rosetta Stoned" is fun romp through a paranoid hippie who either was kidnapped by extra terrestrials or took far too much acid.
Key Tracks: "Jambi," "Right In Two"
3. Undertow
Legacy
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Only a year after the Opiate EP, Tool recorded their first full length album and made their jump from blisteringly raw hard rock to brooding, melodic art metal. Their first hit single, "Sober," which technically appeared in a primitive form on their 1991 demo, became a unique and sinister force that had me calling radio stations for months asking who and what I just heard. They spent the next couple years touring and found themselves going from side stage at Lollapalooza to the main stage mid tour. Undertow was forceful and rhythmic like the best of Metallica and Pantera and had the sultry, seductive yet angst ridden vocal stylings of Chris Cornell/Jeff Buckley love child. Every component felt equally important. What really impressed me about Undertow was how they took the same instruments as other bands in a genre that’s idea of innovation is limited to faster! louder! more Satanic! and created a metal ballet. You can still be heavy, dark, and haunting (see: “Prison Sex”) and deliver musicianship that can lure music fans from Napalm Death to Nirvana.
Key Tracks: "Bottom," "Sober"
2. Lateralus
Legacy
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“Black then white are all I see…” then Lateralus came to be. Many fans and critics alike call this their Kid A. Tool is always moving forward like a shark in deep blue waters; constantly on the hunt for a challenge. In May 2001, they put out a 79-minute opus pushing further and deeper into the trenches, exploring more complicated instrumental arrangements, lyrical themes, and song length. If Aenima was the spaceship they built that blasted them into outer space then Lateralus is the home they built. It was dispatches from Saturn from here on out.
“Schism,” the lead single, earned the band their second Grammy award for best metal performance. The song addresses the band’s inner turmoil: “I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them tumble downNo fault, none to blame, it doesn't mean I don't desire / To point the finger, blame the other, watch the temple topple over / To bring the pieces back together, rediscover communication”
The title track, “Lateralus,” is the definitive Tool song. A nine-minute-24-second ride through dazzling drum and tribal bass work that guide you through the spiral. The song’s arrangement uses the Fibonacci sequence both instrumentally and lyrically resulting in a Golden Ratio roller coaster for your soul. No metal song has ever felt so complete. What they accomplish in almost 10 minutes most musicians wish they could do in an entire album. And it’s not as easy as telling someone to sit down, listen and have your mind blown. This song and album needs context. You need to experience what’s around it, namely right before it to fully grasp where Tool came from and the limitless possibilities lie ahead.
Key Tracks: "Lateralus," "The Patient"
1. Aenima
Legacy
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Packed full of grand compositions, experimentation, anger, sadness, and the philosophy of human evolution, Aenima was a massive undertaking executed with remarkable clarity. What’s even more impressive is they managed to take this huge leap forward on their second full length album. By the end of “Forty Six & 2” it was clear they had set fire to the rules and carved out a path all their own.
What's amazing is while creating this very serious album full of lofty concepts, Tool maintained a sense of humor. (Maynard did after all poke his head in and out of the LA alt-comedy scene in the early '90s, and the band admired Bill Hicks so much they sampled his comedy on the song “Aenema.”) "Hooker With A Penis" spends almost 5 minutes responding to a fan who accused them of selling out by singing, “All you know about me is what I've sold ya, dumb fuck…”
It’s the one and only song reminiscent of what Tool sounded like before setting the rules on fire. The rest of the album charges forward at light speed, leaving the '90s in its sonic wake. Aenima is a complete masterpiece—a perfect showcase of a band’s past, present, and future all in one. It accomplishes what many artists wish they could: an original work that leaves an everlasting imprint on a genre, decade, and musicians and fans for generations to come.
Key Tracks: ALL OF THEM
After the 13-year wait, see where 'Fear Inoculum' lands on our list.