Tool: Heavy Metal for the Thinking Man

When you listen to hard rock or heavy metal your immediate thoughts may run to a bunch of men who were likely former angry teenagers playing unimpressive songs in their parents' garage. Most people will pass on a hard rock band of this fashion. For those who occasionally look deeper, they find something they enjoy.

Tool is one of those bands.

At first glance they appear to be no more than the typical hard rock band playing their angry music and screaming their lyrics. But frontman Maynard James Keenan takes heavy metal and combines it with social commentary and a sense of musical arrangement that rivals the most technical rock bands.

Despite the heavy nature of their songs, Tool plays like a progressive rock band, filling their songs with long musical interludes or musicless, spoken word rants.

Bands playing music like this are usually seen as pretentious, art school rockers. However, with an eye focused on society's persistent problems and a neuvo-gothic sensibility, Tool breaks that stereotype.

The band's songs take on religion, mainstream media, and the oppressive and voyeuristic tendencies of society. The music ranges from darkly melodic to heavy and fast.

These songs struck a chord with fans in the mid-1990s as the band captured the spirited angst of the grunge-era and provided a depth unseen in typical heavy metal bands.

Not one to simply play their music, the band is one of the most technically impressive still playing today. The CDs, which include 1993's "Undertow" and the latest, "10,000 Days," showcase methodically layered tracks organized with a staggering precision that leaves no note wasted. The live shows are no less impressive.

For an experience from the typical hard drumming and heavy guitars, Tool stands as a thinking man's heavy metal band.