10,000 Days
With a majority of the songs on10,000 Daysclocking in well past the seven-minute mark, you wouldn't be entirely mistaken in thinking that the title of the album refers to how long it actually takes to make it through the whole thing. Two of the tracks--the sitar and tabla enhanced "10,000 Days (Wings Part 2)" and its suitably epic psych-rock sister "Rosetta Stoned"--even linger on for nearly a dozen leisurely minutes each. That's delightful news for the legion of Tool fans that have been waiting five years for the follow-up to 2001'sLateralus, which debuted at number one and sold 2.3 million copies in the United States. Singer Maynard James Keenan is back on mystical form after his hiatus with the politically slanted A Perfect Circle, sounding at once ethereal and eloquent as he calmly charges through the metal tempest of the opening track "Vicarious." The rest of the band, meanwhile, hits a series of high-flying moments with tracks such as "Jambi" and "The Pot." When Tool sounds as good as it does on these songs it's hard to get enough. Which makes it all the more baffling that a surprisingly large chunk of the disc is given over to mood-enhancing soundscapes like "Lost Keys" and "Vigniti Tres." Who has time for filler?--Aidin Vaziri