For years and years I thought 10,000 Days was weak. I've been a Tool fan since a friend forced me to listen to Opiate and Undertow in early 1994 at a snowbound U Mass. Each new album has arrived at a different stage in my life. But I was an idiot, an absolute idiot, for not loving 10,000 Days on the first listen.
My expectations for the album were low after the deafening, apocalyptic masterpiece of Lateralus. What on earth made me think that Lateralus would be as high as this band could get? Well, that was my very strange bias. And my bias that 10,000 Days would be a mild disappointment is the reason I didn't spin the album on my Yamaha CD player and Bowers & Wilkens speakers at home. I either ripped the CD to MP3 or copied the CD to MiniDisc and listened to the album, just once, on the NYC subway for an 80 minute ride. Seriously, I listed to it once in late April 2006, shrugged and thought, "It's okay, but I don't hear anything close to Parabola," and then filed the CD into my cabinet of 4,000 discs.
Fear Inoculum made me appreciate just how great Danny Carey has become. He's my second best active rock drummer after Gavin Harrison. The pandemic era let me finally collect and appreciate Puscifer's discography (as well as their two streaming specials during this pandemic). And then finally, just this past summer, I spun 10,000 Days, properly, at home. It was a revelation. It's their peak. It's MJK's peak vocal performance, for sure - as strong as his work on the first A Perfect Circle album 7 years earlier. The lyrics are clever. The band performance is incredible. This is the recording in which Carey shows us that he is a master percussionist. The mixing and mastering couldn't be more perfect. In terms of themes and track order, it is a very complete album, up there or better than Ænima and Undertow when played start to finish. And then there's the energy. Compared for Fear Inoculum, the boys sound more than 20 years younger.
In the summer of 2021, this progressive rock / metal fan finally listened to 10,000 Days and I now agree that it is their second best album. I now feel like a Radiohead fan who stands by The King Of Limbs or In Rainbows as their best, but I've made my choice. 10,000 Days is a continuation of Tool's peak, which began with Lateralus. And their decades-long run of great albums and epic live shows continues.