Song of the Day: Tool - Stinkfist

     Last chance to dance, people, because 90's Week is wrapping up today. But before we go, there's one band for whom the 90's were formative years and without whom I wouldn't be the metalhead I am today.



     Musically, Tool's best work has arguably happened since the millennium (many would cite 2001's Lateralus as the band's greatest achievment) but Opiate, Undertow, and the fucking awesome Aenima all came out between 1990 and 2000, and that's a pretty solid track record for an up-and-coming band. And more importantly, while there were other bands that helped guide me from the rock-based music of my childhood to the heavier tastes of my adolescence and beyond, Tool was one of the first that opened my eyes (all three of them) to the possibilities of heavy music.

     Heavy can be fast and loud, yes, but heavy can be slow and quiet, too. Heavy can be lyrical content. Heavy can be the overall mood of a song. Heavy can be the ebb and flow, the build and release, the calm and then the storm. Heavy can mean so many more things than just straight heavy, and no band in my youth taught me that more than Tool.

     So I'll cut my rambling reminiscence short and declare your last 90's Week song to be "Stinkfist", the opening track from 1996's Aenima. A very fitting first track for this album, this is definitely a case of putting this song on and then letting the whole album ride.