10 Best Progressive Rock Albums Of The 2000s

Tool's third effort marked a significant rise in the group's maturity, both lyrically and in the composition of their increasingly grand scale music.

While 'Schism' netted the group a Grammy for 'Best Metal Performance', 'Lateralus' is very much an elevated form of progressive rock. In the hangover of the simplistic and aggressive nu metal craze of the late '90s and early noughties, Tool put together a borderline incomprehensible epic, challenging the very foundations on which heavy metal was laid.

The titular track is a fine example of Tool's commendable craftsmanship. It's a near 10-minute progressive odyssey balancing complicated time signature changes with rhythmically complementary vocals. The lyrical colour scheme of black, white, red and yellow is inspired by Native American folklore, with frontman Maynard James Keene citing their emphasis on these colours in aboriginal creationist myth.

Conceptually, the album bounces across a variety of other spiritual, supernatural and mathematical themes. It's a heady blend of Hermeticism and Fibonacci numbers among other eclectic subjects that ensure the LP, both lyrically and instrumentally, is paced and structured in precise, increasingly epic fashion.

After a frustrating, four-year legal war with old record label Volcano Entertainment, Tool were bursting at the seams by the time they hit the recording studio for this one. The result is an impassioned masterpiece that took them out of alternative metal and into the very heart of 21st century prog rock.