Tool returns. And I like it.

Vicarious by Tool. Seek it out if you are a fan. If not, then seek out the Patient and Schism first, then you'll get my point.

As any wikipedia going person would know,* Tool latest album entitled 10,000 Days is nearing release. It is a follow up to that title Lateralus you see on my sidebar under the "ultimate top five albums of time" heading. Its beena lot of years since Tool put out an album, so a lot of fans are pretty excited.

Vicarious was leaked to the internet a few days ago. The Tool nerds were all over it, analysing the shit out of it and imposing and reading into it all sorts of meanings that I'm sure Maynard never intended it to have, but that is beside the point. The point is, the Tool nerds were right about one thing - it sounds like some sort of extension of Lateralus, as one would rightly expect. However, I'm going to come out and say what the nerds cannot, because they would probably lynch eachother over this sort of issue:

Vicarious sounds like The Patient and Schism got mashed together. Musically and Themeatically, it is not Tool's most original work.

That being said, it still rocks out hard, and I recommend it to all.

* Wikipedia, although not reliable as a source for legitimate research, since it is user edited, is extreemly useful for one keeping their eye on pop culture for exactly the same reason. The fact that thousands of nerds, geeks and dorks (see "Common theories on the word 'Dork'" Pt.s 1,2 and 3) the world over are costantly editing the content of the most popular encyclopedia ever makes for the disemination of reliable news on any subject involving popular culture or cult followings (IE - something has a bunch of nerds that follow it religiously [exemptions from this grouping is attained through having other interests - eg, i may know everything about star wars, but i also know a heck of a lot of terry pratchett's discworld - I follow both, but neither religiously]). Thusly, when a peice of information, such as "tool has a new album coming out on may 2nd," is released in a press statement the average fan such as myself might not see, the nerds jump all over it and update wikipedia within hours - allow the average internet user to search an easily accessible site quicky for news as opposed to a large amout of time digging through old MTV articles. In summary: wikipedia is a great source for news on pop culture.
That being said, Sam Raimi is to direct the first major studio film adaptation of one of Terry Pratchett's novels. The Wee Free Men currently has a tentative 2008 release date. It is slated to go into production whem Raimi completes spiderman 3.