10 Best Third Albums In Rock And Metal History
4. Lateralus - Tool
One of the songs on Lateralus incorporates the mathematical Fibonacci sequence. One of them samples the band's drummer breathing through a tube. One is Maynard James Keenan slowly pressing down on one of his cats.
It's mad, it's clever, it's Tool.
The band's third album came off the back of a four-year long legal battle with the their old record label. It was preceded by a genius marketing campaign, in which the bank leaked fake songs to file sharing websites in order to throw them off the scent.
The drawn-out process of Lateralus' release was well worth it, as the album is fabulous. Bizarre on first listen, the record is actually incredibly complex and has to be listened to multiple times to be fully taken in.
Spawning the Tool favourite "Schism" would be enough to land this album a place on this list, but the cherries on top of the cake are the title track, "Parabola", and "Triad".
With releases from the group few and far between, it's easy to see why people get so attached to their output. Objectively, though, this album is almost flawless.