Any Tool fans out there.

Tool's videos are quite cool.

Hatpanley,
The few songs I've heard off the new release were trademark Tool, highly engaging, and still continuing to move in the same direction that Lateralus did from the previous albums. That is, they let Danny Carey's drumming come forward just a bit more with each new recording. As well they should. In my opinion, he is the first drummer since Stewart Copeland who is recognized by musicians and non alike to be the one most responsible for the signature of his band's sound. Through his tuning, his chops, and his nuanced playing, he is also the first drummer in quite some time to have pushed the instrument to the next level. He is also the principal reason that I find Tool to be energized and Perfect Circle to be too rote.

I think Tool is one of the most original bands today. I have "Undertow" and "Lateralus". Both are excellent. I also have A Perfect Circle - "Mer de Noms", which I like a lot, but I agree with Boa2 - they're too rote. They are none the less a good listen, mostly because Maynard James Keenan is such a great vocalist. He's one of the best rock voices there is.

Tool is great and I think you have started with by far their best album. Aenima is also really good as well as Opiate. This was my favorite rock band of the 90s and I saw them live a few times which was a real treat. I know I may be in the minority but I thought that Lateralus sucked. Super boring and monotinous, missing much of the awesome time signatures and changes of the early stuff, to me it sounds like with the earlier stuff they really sat down together as a band and worked the hell out of a song till it was really something special, but with the newer stuff I get the feeling everyone is sort of just dropping their parts in individually.

I liked as well the first A Perfect Circle album, Mer De Noms. They seemed to get crappier with time as well, maybe I haven't given some of the latest stuff a fair shake, but to my ear Maynard (the singer) just lost a lot of the edge and weirdness he had as a younger man.

Of course it's all an opinion, but it seems with many awesome raw rock bands the more polished they get the more of the raw edge you loved so much about the first albums seems to get lost with time

I have been listening to Tool and Perfect Circle for years now, I agree Undertow is the best by Tool and i prefer 13th step by Perfect Circle. They have been reference discs for me for a while, if a system can reproduce Tool well then most anything else will sound good. Have you guys heard Tool on vinyl? Check out my pic of my turntable. The album you see is Lateralus. I recently saw them in Seattle, they rocked!