17/09/2026
😳 30 years 🖤 💿
Tool's Ænima turns 30 years old today.
1993's Undertow might have singled Tool out as an unconventional heavy band but it was the sequel that sealed their status as prog metal juggernauts operating in a league of their own.
From the enticing opening moments of Stinkfist to the colossal closing mantra of Third Eye, Ænima settles for nothing less than ambitiously strange and subversive.
This was music to get lost in — dark as obsidian, just as sharp in subject matter and hard in sound, with hypnotic grooves coiled around tricky time signatures fronted by Maynard James Keenan's alluring vocals.
Streaked beneath this dark atmosphere was equally black comedy. A dedication to late stand-up Bill Hicks features in the liner notes alongside advertising for fake Tool records (Bethlehem Abortion Clinic and Iced P*e, for example). All while the industrial, fascist rally sounds of Die Eier Von Satan simply disguised a recipe for ma*****na cookies.
These sly, anti-commercial gestures sat side-by-side with cerebral lyrics concerning religious zealotry (Eulogy), selling out (Ho**er With A P***s), spiritual enlightenment (Forty Six & 2), and wiping out LA's navel-gazing celebrity worship culture (Ænima).
Besides being the band's breakthrough success, reaching #2 in the US, Ænima also secured Australia's love affair with Tool (last seen headlining Good Things festival in 2025).
What’s your favourite track from the record?
