The “powerful” band Alex Lifeson obsessed over in the 1990s: “Over and over”
While Rush were certainly one of the foremost progressive rock acts in the world during their heyday in the 1970s and ‘80s, there appeared to be something of a decline in the genre after the end of this period, much to their frustration.
Of course, throughout this period of decreased prominence, they still managed to keep a dedicated core group of hardcore fans, and this is something that has always worked in the band’s favour since their initial formation.
However, it was around the 1980s that the wider genre of progressive rock was mutating, and with synthesisers becoming a much more prominent feature of popular music, it began to seep its way into other domains and dictated the direction that other bands would take going forward.
Prog rock would end up taking a similar approach to what happened with post-punk around the same time, and many former prog acts evolved into new wave pioneers in certain cases, with synthy experimentation becoming a major feature of their output.
However, this period of transition didn’t automatically mean that the genre would die out entirely, and luckily for the hardline prog obsessives, there was one act who emerged in the 1990s who were seemingly going to cement themselves as the saviours of the genre.
While Tool are perhaps slightly closer to the world of metal than Rush ever were, their musical dexterity and intelligence has always been something that massively appealed to fans of Rush and other like-minded individuals. Not only were fans flocking towards this fledgling act, but Rush themselves were admittedly smitten by their approach to things.
While bassist and frontman Geddy Lee has proclaimed on many occasions that he was a huge fan of the band, guitarist Alex Lifeson also had plenty to say about their work, with one album in particular making a serious impression on him when it was originally released. During a 2009 interview with Guitar World, Lifeson heaped praise upon the new heirs to the prog rock throne, singling out the work of certain members and highlighting 1996’s ‘Third Eye’, taken from Ænima, as being one of their most impressive moments.
“Adam Jones is a fabulous guitarist and songwriter, and Tool are such a powerful band,” he argued. “You know it’s Tool when you hear them, because they’re intensely dynamic, yet heavy, even when their playing is light. I listened to this album over and over; I don’t do that very often. Tool have an interesting, intelligent approach to song construction and lyrics. It’s just too bad we don’t hear from them more often.”
It’s easy to understand why there would be overlap between the two acts and their fanbases, and for a genre that appeared to be holding less stock in the music world, it was necessary for a band like Tool to carry the mantle and ensure that it lived on in its new incarnation. On Ænima, they took everything they’d begun on their debut album, Undertow, and taken it to the next level, breathing life into prog rock at a crucial time.
