10 Best Hard Rock Songs Over 10 Minutes Long
8. Tool - Third Eye - 13:51
The linear notes for Tool’s 1996 game changer Ænima dedicate the record to comedian Bill Hicks and it’s clear from the outset of Third Eye what parts of Hicks’ routine that the band enjoyed the most. As Third Eye heats up a sample of the comedian plays urging his audience to "go home and burn all the music they own" if they are opposed to psychedelic drugs, as all their favourite music doesn’t exist without it. Themes of spiritualism via psychedelics are prevalent through Tool’s career but none are perhaps more in your face as this 13:51 album closer.
Every hallmark of Tool is present: Danny Carey’s tribal drum battery, lurching rhythms and time signatures, heavily distorted guitar tones… But more than that, Third Eye’s thick layers of sound go from assisting the ambience of the track to rising to the forefront, attacking the listener with a confusing barrage of audio.
It’s the second half of the track that really sings as the music drops out and builds back up with Maynard James Kennan narrating the final verse. Justin Chancellor slides almost lazily up and down the fretboard of his bass creating a thick, cloudy atmosphere. The haze that Third Eye creates means that its 13 minute runtime slides by, and soon enough it crescendos, closing the album with Keenan crying out “prying open my third eye!”.
Some long songs are slow and wistful but Third Eye remains a suffocating, dense experience and Ænima is all the better for it.