Tool - Opiate
 

Track Listing:

One of my favourite bands, this E.P is Tool’s first commercial release. It is also their shortest. It is also their hardest.
This album contains 6 songs and one hidden track. It is a mixture of live material and studio recordings. There is no real theme to the E.P it is merely portraying the sheer brutality this band possesses. The song lyrics are Maynard’s first and are far from his best. However they deal with drugs, the anger he felt towards society, the anger towards people who wouldn’t do things for themselves, and there was no desire to make these lyrics artistically beautiful when the album had such a no-nonsense attitude. Musically, all the tracks are fairly similar. Danny Carey has consistently frenetic drumming throughout the album. Adam Jones incorporates a small range of seductively hard riffs and Paul D’Amor plays along on bass accordingly. The album artwork is traditional early days Tool; dark and disturbing.
Unlike their other albums there is little progression on display here, and all the tracks have a similar sound to them apart from Opiate. But in 6 vicious 5 minute songs, who needs progression.

1. Sweat is hard to interpret. It doesn’t have a straightforward meaning. Hopefully one day the band will write a book of explanations but until then, we’re left thinking for ourselves. There has been a fair bit of debate about it’s main theme amongst Tool fans. In the lyrics there is a reference to a poem Edgar Allan Poe once wrote, about everything being a “Dream within a Dream”. Also, there are many key terms linked to Baptism. And some consider it an Lsd trip in the desert. Hard music accompanies this track.

2. Hush is the only song on Opiate that had a video. The band members are just standing naked pretty much. Hush is quite clever, Maynard sings of saying what he wants to, doing things his own way, without being taken so seriously all the time. The lyrics scream profanities at whoever he’s referring to, and then he proceeds to say “Just Kidding”. Hard music also accompanies this song, pretty narly screams thrown in too.

3. Part Of Me , for me, is one of the weaker tracks on Opiate. The song is still musically hard and angry, and it does have pretty good mini climaxes throughout, but it is let down slightly as it’s a little too repetitive. Although I call it a weaker track out of the others, I don’t mean it is a weak song in it’s own right.

4. Cold And Ugly is similar to Part Of Me but this song has the one of the coolest intro’s and outro’s you’ll ever hear, and they’re not musical either. The track has dark lyrics concerning fear on the inside but hard and bitter on the outside, though theres probably a deeper meaning to it.

5. Jerk – Off is the most well known track off Opiate. It’s a brutal onslaught against those who are too stupid to think for themselves, to work for themselves, and those who always push the boundaries. I suspect this comes from Maynard’s younger days in the US Army where he would have taken on strong values. Three of these values are well known throughout the Tool community and serve many times in the albums that follow Opiate; “lie, cheat and steal – I will not tolerate you”.

6. Opiate is a different track it’s a little more seductive and starts off far softer then any of the other tracks. It does however contain demeaning lyrics involving rape and the words in my signature “ Deaf and blind and dumb and born to...”. After two minutes of silence at the end of Opiate there is the hidden track, known as the Gaping Lotus Experience. This is a pure drug trip, talks about dogs rooting lazy-boys, big red fire engines and urine.

All in all, this album is an immensely powerful 30 minutes, but nothing substantial. Maynard conveys far more anger then any death metal band ever has, while actually singing properly. The band is not as exploratory in this album but as it’s their first, you can easily see where they’ve come from.

Rating 8/10

In comparison to the other Tool albums this would only fetch a 7 but as an E.P on it’s own, it’s pretty damn good for what it is.

Here are a few songs, this is half the album and it's pretty much what the other half sounds like too, apart from Opiate. So if you haven't heard it before, you can make your judgement based on these songs:

Jerk-Off
Sweat
Cold And ugly

I love this album. Pretty good review.

It's indicative of the further greatness which Tool would go on to achieve. It is definetely shadowed by their later releases, but it's still a great album in and of itself. Two key details that you hinted at but didn't explicitly mention: Hush is about censorship, and Opiate is about religion.

Great album, in any case.

Oh censorship! That would have been a good word to use, I should have known that after seeing the video as well. Bother. Thankyou team, I wasn't sure about my review.

I prefer Ænima. I was never able to get into this EP at all. Maybe I should give it another listen.

Everyone prefers Aenima.

I think you should give this E.P another listen, and try not to compare it to the other Tool albums because after Opiate it's just a massive rollercoaster ride of progression and experimentation, and if you're trying to find that sort of brilliance on Opiate, it's not there. Opiate has other quality's. Quality's that built a strong basis for Tool to work off of.

Listen to this album for the anger, the way Tool give it to you, and the lyrics that are profoundly non PC.

Damn, as I write this I begin to wish I'd rated it higher.

I love both Aenima and Opiate.:)

I love everything Tool's ever released. I'd give every EP and every LP 10/10.

Pretty good review though (even if the rating is too low :-P).

Haha, see my post post above for a sort of re-evaluation.

hmmm
 

opiate, well it's no Ænima that's for sure. But that doesn't take away from the fact that it's still a highly effective album. I prefer this to all other albums besides Ænima. It showcases a young band with a lot of potential's first stage in their developement. Tool started off a lot more cynical and pissed off with a "poison tipped dart" aimed at organized religion this time. In conclusion "Opiate" would probably earn at least an 8/10 for me. It's the middle-ground between Undertow's more hardrock grooves and Ænima's sludge-rock frustration.

agree with most of this

I love this album its my second favorite Tool album (Lateralus).

Opiate(The song)is about religion. More precisely about ministers/pastors, and how they just want you to let them tend you like a shephard tends sheep. Rape is not used in a sexual context here, just to clarify. My favorite is when he says: "Jesus Christ, why don't you come save my life now", it's in a subtley sarcastic, almost mocking way. Especially the "Jesus Christ" part. Brilliant. The best song on an excellent EP. Highly recommended.

How about the end of Eulogy?

"Come down.
Get off your ****in cross.
We need the ****in space
to nail the next fool martyr!

To ascend you must die!
You must be crucified
for your sins and your lies!
Goodbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye!"

and A Perfect Circle's Judith?
A lot of his songs are about organized religion. Maynard's mom's name is Judith and it sounds like Judith the song was written to his mom about how religious she is and he's trying to show her how ignorant she is:

"F*ck your God
Your Lord and your Christ
He did this
Took all you had and
Left you this way
Still you pray, you never stray
Never taste of the fruit
You never thought to question why"

Great stuff :)

Most of the songs revolve around life in some way. Throughout Tool's history there have always been songs that just probe questions and ideas around the many facets of life. Not crackpot theories eather, proper actual ideas.

Very knowledgable people even before you associate them with making awesome music.

I have not yet listened to an album by Tool that wasn't amazing.

Good, but not one of Tool's best albums. I think I would go for either aenima or lateralus being their best. I like the raw sound on opiate, though. Tool is a band that hikes up my idea that not all bands get worse over the years. Their new albums are actually something to look forward to, knowing you won't be dissapointed.

Tool yaaaaay!

:love: :love: :love: :love:

Brilliant review and ^^ post.

Opiate is my fav. Tool album..it was also what got me hooked. I listened to this album so much that my room mates hid it from me and made me by Undertow...which they also hid from me...then Aenima came and I wasnt so impressed with it and only listened it it half as much as Opiate and or Undertow...Lateralus is my second fav..but Opiate is what I always recommend to Tool haters or people that have only listened to Aenima.

9/10
 

9/10, even though my least fav. Tool album. It is just that much better than most all of the other music out there. Undertow is my all time favorite album. This one is alright w/ Hush as my fav. along w/ Opiate. This album sounds much different than their later work. Perhaps they wanted to establish themselves as a dark heavy band to giv them more credibility when they moved to dark lighter stuff. Either way it's all very dark, but w/ light at the end of the tunnel. If you're into instant gratification, they're not for u, like when I first started listening to Aenima, I didn't know what they were going for, or why all my friends liked them. However, the more u listen to them, the more their music draws u in, and I love it!

The part about the more you listen the more you like is true for many reasons...most people dont give Tool the time to really let them work their musical/lyrical magic on them...

Speaking of Opiate, who has a megaupload.com download link?
I'll have to buy it again sometime later, but my music store just closed down.
Wont be able to get it now unless I venture 2 hours away.

Google blog search is your friend.

I rated it "excellent", but I am not the most impartial person when it comes to this band. I would give every Tool album an "excellent" rating.

I've only listened to Opiate, Undertow, and Ænema. Strangely I seem to gravitate more toward Tool's first two albums more, they just feel more solid to me. Though I love how Ænema has more of a psychedelic feel to it, it just doesn't give me that harsh direct confrontation and obvious mocking satire that makes me say "yeah, that's definitely Tool." Also it's notably more synthesized. =/

In my opinion, you should probably give the rest of the discography a listen. Ænema, to me, was the beginning of a beautiful transition for Tool. Though I love the rawness of early Tool, the undeniable growth in their music and individual albums is mind-blowing. Have you heard Lateralus or 10,000 Days yet? I sometimes feel that they can be one album together because they are both more experimental and psychedelic than previous albums. Regardless of the more melodic sounds and progressive elements, there's still an underlying "mocking satire", as you mentioned. If you check in the A Perfect Circle/Tool Thread (which annoys me because these two bands shouldn't be clumped together just because of MJK), I've posted mini-reviews and a songs from most, if not all the albums.

^I'll go check out those album reviews and be sure to get around to giving the rest of Tools uncatalogued a spin or two.