Merkaba

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

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swim

I love this album. Pretty good review.

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cardboard adolescent

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.

Merkaba

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.

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...of Epic Questions

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

Merkaba

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.

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NaNaNer

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.

__________________
Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

“See I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do, and if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor: go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your cds and burn 'em. 'cause you know the musicians who made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years.... rrrrrrrrreal f**kin high on drugs.”

TheUsedToolguy

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!

NaNaNer

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...

__________________
Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

“See I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do, and if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor: go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your cds and burn 'em. 'cause you know the musicians who made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years.... rrrrrrrrreal f**kin high on drugs.”

~nutshell~

I love both Aenima and Opiate.