![]() ![]() It’s often said that you can find patterns in anything if you look hard enough, but what if these clues were left there to be found? In the case of Lateralus at least, this isn’t the work an overzealous fan, proselytising or foisting genius upon the artist after the fact. The sum total of this brain-twisting exposition is that Tool didn’t do any of this by accident. We can only be marginally sure we’ve explained it correctly. Keep going.’įollowing so far? You’ll be forgiven if some of that hasn’t quite landed. The final lines Maynard sings are, ‘ Spiral out. Furthermore, the time signature of the song’s main riff is 9/8, 8/8 and 7/8, and 987 is the 17th number in the sequence. The syllables in those verses match the sequence too, peaking at 13 (coincidentally, the same number of total album tracks) and then again in a descending order thereafter. Each verse is also 55 seconds long, which is the 11th number in the sequence. The first verse kicks in on 97 seconds, which is approximately 1.618 minutes, i.e. Lateralus’s title-track’s introduction lasts one minute and 12 seconds and the numbers 0, 1, 1, 2 are the first four in the Fibonacci sequence. So here’s where it all gets a little (*Keanu voice*) ‘Woah…’ When charted on a graph, that sequence spirals outwards. But honestly, you don’t know the half of it.įor those unaware or merely lacking the inclination to use a search engine, the Fibonacci sequence is a mathematical term, where each digit is the sum of the two that come before it – a numerical representation of the fabled ‘golden ratio’ which can be found in art and nature, comprising everything from flowers to seashells and even the hairs on your head. Unless you’re in that select band of Tool devotees, you might well be scratching your head right about now. To those fans, the body of work produced in those late 2000 sessions is The Holy Gift, the ‘secret’ album hiding in plain sight when its 13 tracks are rearranged to mimic the Fibonacci sequence. Although the powerhouse quartet’s legend was already cemented by the two-and-a-half prodigious studio efforts that preceded it, Lateralus would be the moment that transformed that special breed of Tool fan’s love into something approaching cult-like obsessional.įor a sizeable number of those listeners, Lateralus isn’t even the name of the record. Twenty years ago this month, Maynard James Keenan, Adam Jones, Danny Carey and Justin Chancellor entered a Hollywood recording studio and began laying down the album that many would argue remains their masterwork to this day. There are three types of people in this world: those who like Tool, those who don’t like Tool, and those who probably like Tool a little too much. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |