The same vision, five years later

Tool

“10,000 Days” (Tool Dissectional/Volcano)

***

Tool was never a prolific band, nor one for big changes from one album to the next. The Tool vision is steady and obsessive, a brooding musical journey deep into the psychological darkness and back, again and again and again.

Another five years between albums hasn’t changed its formula of modern prog-metal, never ever going soft, unless the exposed nerves of singer Maynard James Keenan counts as a new sensitivity.

There are more thundering instrumental windouts from guitarist Adam Jones to satisfy the Tool army, and Keenan remains the wounded raging voice to the heavens, cursing “the collective Judas” or celebrating live death on TV. If “10,000 Days” lacks the absolute intensity and focus of 2001’s “Lateralus,” the new album at least stands as a stirring repeat of the Tool musical manifesto.

Keenan even finds some emotional redemption on “Jambi,” while “Wings for Marie” remains one for the headphones, as fuzzy rhythms and encroaching beats boomerang between the channels, and Keenan wonders, “What have I done to be a son to an angel? What have I done to be worthy?”

Things get more interesting, or more surprising, at the halfway point with some unexpected interludes, beginning with “Lipan Conjuring,” a kind of tribal a cappella chant. The deeply melodic “Right in Two” is hardly the longest track at just under nine minutes, but is followed by five more minutes of fluttery industrial sounds, wind and static, fading out to a message unnerving but inconclusive.

Albums are rated on a scale of four stars (excellent) to one star (poor). Albums reviewed are in stores except as indicated.