But, as often as they've opened our third eyes and given us Holy Gifts, Tool started as inconspicuously as any other early-90's band, building up a small but loyal following around L.A. before eventually catching the ear of labels, signing with Zoo Entertainment and putting out the modest, scrappy EP Opiate in '92.
If Opiate served as an introduction, Undertow served as a true arrival. The ragged, loose performances from the EP tightened up, refrains became actual hooks, and Maynard... well, Maynard James Keenan morphed from a singer into an icon. His vocal performances on Undertow help the songs hit that unheard-of, ethereal level that's old hat today but was a revelation in 1993.
Dark, mysterious and dangerous, Undertow was the perfect record for anyone who feared the "grunge" movement was starting to get a bit stale and was looking to go a little further down the rabbit hole, as it were. Undertow's songs were too ugly to be mainstream, too cerebral to penetrate any pop chart, and the way they represented themselves visually was too repulsive to be acceptable.
Well, we know how that worked out; Undertow (as ugly, repulsive and cerebral as it was) was a hit, as of this writing selling nearly three million copies in the U.S. alone. It helped countless youngsters (this one included) explore their darker impulses, and created a legion of fans who would have to wait a very long time for Tool to disappoint. Twenty years later and, in fact, it hasn't happened yet.
Tracklist (for those who don't know it by heart and/or are playing this in this window):
00:00 Intolerance / 04:53 Prison Sex / 09:50 Sober / 14:55 Bottom / 22:12 Crawl Away
27:41 Swamp Song / 33:12 Undertow / 38:33 4° / 44:36 Flood / 53:22 Disgustipated
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