If you wish, you can view Ænema through a strict Jungian lens, and I doubt you’ll be disappointed. In other words, in order for you to be healthy, you must reckon with both your gender and its opposite. The key process for Jung is individuation: when all of the archetypes are integrated into a well-functioning whole. These archetypes could be buried deep inside a person’s subconscious, or they could dominate conscious behavior. The animus is a woman’s inner understanding of the masculine.
The anima is man’s biological expectation of women, as well as his feminine possibilities or tendencies. But here we are concerned with the anima and animus: our primordial understanding of the opposite sex. Others are events: the creation, the great flood, the apocalypse. Some are figures: the trickster, the father, the great mother, the child, the wise old man or woman, the shadow. He rejected the view that humans are born with a tabula rasa, or blank slate rather, Jung believed that humans arrive with certain archetypal ideas already planted in our brains. Jung thought of himself as a man of science, but his obsession with symbols, and his dabbling in philosophy and the occult, lend his writings a whiff of the mystical. But putting aside the lyrics for a moment: Wow.
But a first-time listener is unlikely to perk up until the chorus, when Maynard James Keenan wails out the words, “Why can’t we not be sober?” The double negative is classic Keenan, saying exactly what he means in a way that leaves the listener in doubt. Danny Carey’s skittering drums pound like an irregular heartbeat, and the verses are interesting in a quiet sort of way. And on “Sober,” it is Jones’ ringing guitars that announce the band as masters of atmosphere. The figurines in the band’s striking music video for “Sober” (from Tool’s full-length debut Undertow) were designed by guitarist Adam Jones, who would go on to direct several of Tool’s music videos. Heavy music was undergoing a creative revolution. The same environment that allowed for the rap-rock stylings of Korn and Limp Bizkit allowed for other, stranger innovations. But when purists raged against the introduction of hip-hop into hard rock, they missed the broader story. This frenzy gave rise to the most maligned musical movement of recent memory, nu metal. Record companies gobbled up new artists, trying to meet the exploding demand for hard rock. Audiences seemed thirsty for edgy music, and the music industry was anxious to cash in. In 1991, Nirvana and Metallica had unleashed a new kind of aggressive storytelling on the Billboard charts, with Nevermind and Metallica (aka “The Black Album”) each becoming the No. This decision to walk two roads, high and low, helped Tool stand out among the crowded field of crunchy guitars in the early ’90s. I can’t think of a better introduction to this notoriously dense band than that word Ænima lyrically, musically, and especially in the title, the album covers all of the ground between meditations on the nature of consciousness and jokes about poop. Of course, the title of Tool’s second album isn’t Anima, and that’s very important. For their second album, Tool drew on the writings of Carl Jung, Freud’s most brilliant disciple, who gave us the language of introverts and extroverts, the idea of a consciously constructed persona, and the Jungian archetypes, of which the anima is but one. Others have drawn imagery out of the Bible, Norse mythology, or the bloodier epochs of European history. This goes double for horror and fantasy fiction: Led Zeppelin meditated on The Lord of the Rings, Black Sabbath wailed about “The Wizard,” and Metallica thrashed to the monster Cthulu. Many musicians have been influenced by books, but there seems to be something especially literary about the genres of hard rock and metal. Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in 2016, but has been updated in 2021 to reflect the 25th anniversary of Ænima. This piece celebrates Tool’s acclaimed sophomore album Ænima. Dusting ‘Em Off is a rotating, free-form feature that revisits a classic album, film, or moment in pop-culture history.