“Prying Open My Third Eye” // Tool: For the Fans – Part II

As promised, part 2 of the Tool post. In the first section I went over some of my “favorites” as a way to pay respect to the band who has completely carved the taste in music I possess today. For me, Tool has become more than a band… As stated by Soen vocalist, Joel Ekelöf, We are inspired by Tool but I consider them not only a band but a genre. Over the last few years, that is exactly what Tool has become for me – A whole genre. I have seen many complaints throughout the internet by “hardcore”Tool fans out there aimed at other bands who have taken inspiration for the great forerunners of such a unique sound. The main complaint is that the other bands are “Tool rip-offs.” Though possibly this is true here and there, I am still thankful that there are bands that have not been too scared to dabble in the “Tool-esque” sound that has enlightened us for the last couple decades. One thing is for certain…it cannot be easy. It is also obviously not a 100% popular thing today. On YouTube I have even seen many bands receive comments diluted with profanity for “trying to hard to imitate Tool.”

I’d like to address a few issues. I mean no disrespect if you have been harsh toward one of these such “Tool-inspired” bands. But I would also appreciate my thoughts to at least be taken into consideration before plaguing another band with swear words without a second thought.

Tool knows how great they are (at least they better know). Whenever any kind of movement is started, people are sure to follow. Tool has an incredible fan base – one of the strongest in the industry. Personally, I would almost view it as disrespectful if no one attempted to follow in their footsteps. If no bands attempted to continue on the path Tool set out to tread, it would almost be like the world saying, “Your music isn’t good enough to continue.” So if you come across a band who has obvious strong Tool-influence, rather than being angry or offended, it would seem more reasonable to share the feeling of honor Tool lives with, knowing there are people out there who love the band as much as you do and want to take their own stab (at that genre mentioned earlier).

Now it might be possible, but I doubt many bands, if not any, set out thinking, Let’s try to copy Tool as much as we possibly can. Searching for bands has become one of my major hobbies. As embarrassed as I am to admit (not really), I’ll sit by the computer for hours, going through Facebook and YouTube in search of a new band. I am very particular about what I listen to. I don’t just automatically “love” any band I come across. But I must say this… Out of the hundreds of bands I’ve listened to, not ONE has resembled Tool too much to the point where that is the reason I don’t prefer their music. My point is, I strongly believe people (Tool fans) really need to open their minds a bit, pry open their third eyes, and be much more accepting of bands who draw inspiration from the legendary band we all love (even if you don’t want to follow them in the long run). Going around spreading hate over the ambition of others does absolutely no good to anyone. Most people have a pretty particular taste in music, and everyone comes across bands or artists they don’t prefer. But if that’s the case, it doesn’t ever justify writing hateful comments to the band telling them why their music doesn’t appeal to you (whether it’s their Tool-resemblance or anything else).

So two points.

1. Let Tool be honored by other bands who attempt to follow in their footsteps (many of which succeed, in my humble opinion).

2. Bands don’t set out with the mindset to duplicate another band as much as possible and piss off music fans. You might not like their music, but no one is forcing you to listen to it! There’s no reason to pick apart bands for the sole purpose of being a hater. And if you must criticize, at least make it constructive.

That being said, the purpose of this blog is to share bands, and the purpose of this particular post is to share bands who show that Tool-influenced sound I’ve been talking about this whole time. You might not be thrilled with each band’s particular sound, but who knows… There might be one, or two, or more that you end up loving. I will simply list out the bands here without many links to their music, social pages, etc. (although each band is linked to their Facebook page). As quickly as my schedule allows I will begin to write more in-depth posts about each band listed here. This page will also be updated each time I come across another band that fits this category, and they will instantly be added to the list.

My goal is to make this a community where music-listeners (who share similar tastes to each other and myself) can come to find bands, talk about them, and suggest their own favorites – basically like a forum.

Bands are listed alphabetically (if you didn’t catch that)…

• Absent Hearts (side project by Daniel Tompkins of Skyharbor & Absent Hearts; previously of Tesseract)
  
• Absolace
  
• Adesta
• Agent
• Alaya
  
• Amusia
• Angertea
• Aoria
• Aperture
  
• Archetypes (formed Bill Sanchez & Jason Broussard of Ceterum & op·aq·ue) // (only instrumental demos released)
• Ashes Divide (solo project by Billy Howerdel, guitarist for A Perfect Circle)
  
• Birds of Tokyo (vocalist is Ian Kenny of Karnivool)
  
• Blindspott (now Blacklistt)
  
• Boil
  
• Breaking Orbit
  
• Broken Iris
• Caligula’s Horse
• Carthasy
• Ceterum
  
• Chaos Divine
  
• Chaplin
• Children of Nova
• The Chronicles of Israfel
• Circles
  
• Codec
• Cog
  
• Cold Bloom
  
• Counterfist
• Dead Letter Circus
  
• Deftones
• Deligma
• Dharmata
  
• DispersE
  
• Divine Ratio
• Divot
• Eightfourseven
• Emergent
• Etched In Red
  
• eye (Empty Yard Experiment)
• Fading Hour
  
• Fair to Midland
  
• Feersum Ennjin (project by Paul D’Amour – original bassist for Tool)
  
• Forever the Optimist
• Frozen Alice
• Frozen Compass
• Further Earth
• Futile
• Gemini Syndrome
• Glass Empire
  
• The Glass Hideaway
• The Ghost Apparatus
• Guards of May
• Head Filled Attraction
• Helm
• The Hungry Mile
• Intandem
• Intervals
• In the Silence
  
• Invocation
• The ISOLATION Process (new project by former members of Lingua)
• Jericco
  
• Jolly
• Junius
• Jurojin
  
• Kadinja
• Karnivool
  
• Katatonia
  
• Kaura
• Knave
• Korea
• Kubark
• Lesser Key (another project featuring Paul D’Amour)
• Like Thieves
• Lingua
• Living Syndication
• Lunatic Soul
• LYE
• The Machinist
• The Mayan Factor
• Meniscus
• Mercury Sky
• Minora
• Minor Empires
• Mire
• Monuments
• Moving Atlas
• Naive
• Nature By Numbers
  
• Neotokyo
  
• Ninth of May
• North Til Dawn
• Nothing More
  
• Oceansize
• The Occupants (featuring Flynn & Luke Gower, formerly of Cog)
  
• On a Bridge of Dust
• On Being Human
• op·aq·ue (solo project by Bill Sanchez of Ceterum & Archetypes)
  
• Opia
• Order of Voices
  
• Pandemic
  
• A Perfect Circle (vocalist is Maynard Keenan of Tool)
  
• Pinwheel
• Port Noir
• Prisma
• Proghma-C
• Rincon
  
• Rishloo
  
• Riverside
  
• Sadhana
  
• Saturate
• Saul
• Scatterfly
• Scent of Winter
• Serial Killer Smile
  
• Silence Is A Virus
• Silt
• Skyharbor (vocalist is Daniel Tompkins, ex-member of Tesseract)
  
• Sleep Parade
  
• smallman
• Soen (drummer is Martin Lopez, ex-member of Opeth)
  
• Socionic
  
• Soma
• Sounds of Sirus
  
• Spinning Black Circle (couldn’t find a Facebook page for this band so the link will lead you to Bandcamp where you can purchase their album)
• Stealing Axion
• S.T.E.M. (guitarist is Greg Bolomey [Axe of Creation], famous for his incredible Tool lessons on YouTube)
  
• Sturch
• The Sun Explodes
• Superb Lyrebird
• Surrender the Sun
• A Swarm of the Sun
• Sydonia
• Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster
• Temple of Thieves
• Tesseract
• This Misery Garden
• Tool (wait…)
  
• Transience
  
• Tranzhumanist (another project by Bill Sanchez and Jason Broussard of Ceterum, Archetypes, op·aq·ue, etc.)
• Traverser
  
• Tread
  
• Twelve Foot Ninja
• Uneven Structure
  
• Ursa
  
• Vain Velocity
• Varliiba  (couldn’t find a Facebook page for this band so the link will lead you to CD Baby where you can purchase their album)
  
• Vessl
• Voices from the Fuselage
• Vola
• We Are the Emergency
• When Prophecy Fails
  
• White Moth Black Butterfly
• YourDesign

As promised, I will be giving each of these bands their own separate post to highlight their individual work. They are ALL killer, so stay tuned! Thanks for bearing through these drawn out articles (if you even made it this far without skipping over half of it).

Also, a huge shoutout to The Aussie Alternative! Many of the bands listed here have been shared by their page, so I definitely recommend checking them out.

Happy Listening!