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Fully on board with all that, Dan. I love Tool (mostly older stuff as I've not really kept up), and also APC. Mostly I dig music that has solid musicianship and intelligent lyrics, and both bands really fit that description.

It is very different and poppy compared to previous stuff for sure. I like it in the context of the song, even though overall I prefer Tool's prog/metal melding.

I'm not a Maynard whisperer / expert, but my guess is that there are 2 motivations for the sound of this song/album compared to other stuff.

1) Although Maynard is the vocalist for Tool, APC, and Puscifer (which I haven't listened to much), he kinda wants to keep all those projects distinct. Tool is more dark and heavy, APC is a bit more rock, and Puscifer trending towards some electronic stuff. But that kinda oversells this, because mostly he is putting vocals down onto musical tracks that the members of those bands have already recorded without much or any input from him...

2) From my interpretation of the song itself, he's being (mildly) critical about getting caught up in triviality of celebrity gossip and nightly news instead of paying attention to stuff closer to home. While simultaneously accepting that we all do that, and that sometimes it takes the death of a far-off idol from our adolescence that we'll never meet in person to get us to consider our own mortality.


So the poppy sound with that dark edge right around the corner really fits -- at least to me.

I'm a pretty big fan of Tool, and Maynard (singer for Tool, APC, and Puscifer). Weird / eccentric, but very deep and meaningful. I've been waiting for a new Tool album for a long time, but this one from APC wasn't really on my radar in advance even though I like other albums of theirs also. Then these singles hit, and they grabbed me right away.

The full impact takes longer to absorb, for me at least, with Maynard's songs. Usually I don't pay much attention to lyrics, but he always puts a lot of depth and breadth in. I guess I might think that was pretentious with other bands/artists, but seems like he really enjoys hearing different listeners take away different messages without one/his being "correct".

Glad you enjoyed them also!

I agree, but i have something else that it smells like too. Like when i was a kid and i'd be out with friends, unsupervised, not yet responsible, and let's say someone swings off a tree and the branch snaps off. He goes oh that shows how strong i am, so before long another kid starts trying to rip a branch off, people are mocking each other, challenging each other's strength. Before you know it, you're in a group with a load of kids like wild animals trying to destroy a tree on someone's lawn, branches and leaves everywhere, dirt and mud and the tree uprooting. I made that example up, but many people have been in that kind of situation as a kid. Mine was absentmindedly throwing mud at a wall because it made an interesting splat. I zoned in half an hour later from my daydream and realised i'd ruined someone's wall and covered their driveway in mud. I did clear it up.

What this smells of to me, is that they were after someone, getting excited and feeling the thrill, suddenly one turns to his mate and goes "dude! do you think we can use those new explosives...?", another one chips in "even better, we've got that APC!", and they all hoot and howl with excitement, grab all of their exciting new toys and go in like the charge of the light brigade. Take out those fences so we can surround them! We need that wall down! Maybe that one! By this time they've forgotten that they're trying to protect people's property and safety, but they're having the time of their lives.

That's what it smells of to me - out of control immaturity and gang/yob mentality. And they're armed with army equipment now. When things like this start to happen, you really have to start questioning how things are being run. How else could it have happened that they gut out a house like that?

"They methodically fired explosives into every room in this house in order to extract one person. Granted, he had a handgun, but against 100 officers? You know, the proper thing to do would be to evacuate these homes around here, ensure the safety of the homeowners around here, fire some tear gas through the windows. If that didn’t work, you have 50 SWAT officers with body armor break down the door."

-----

You see, they methodically blew out walls with explosives to force him into one area. They used an APC with a breaching attachment to open multiple entries into the residence. One hundred cops against a guy with one handgun.

If this is our standard procedure, terrorists don't need to hit big targets, just split up and hide out in buildings. By the time our militar...oops, police force is done, the building will be wrecked to a shell. But we'll have that one terrorist, so as the Chief of Police said in this case, it's a WIN!

The manufacturers will be more than happy to ship the artillery. Obama is just not gonna pay for it.

APCs are available to anyone with at least a good credit rating. You can't buy military spec transport, but you can certainly buy BETTER than military spec.

"We need to get rid of all this heavy weaponry and armour. The APCs, the grenade launchers. All of that junk. What other kind of things are the police parading around with?"

"Tanks, Obama"

APC was an amazing band.
Their version of Imagine and Noose are some of the most emotional songs I can think of.

Upvote for rocking whitewalls on an APC.

I didn't say they were killing millions, I said they were trained to kill...

US police conflict resolution is at the point of a gun as the first step. Most other countries where a reasonable rule of law exists teach conflict resolution prior to drawing weapons on people.

APC's, body armour, fully automatic weapons etc are not the tools of a police force, they are the tools of an army, but somehow small towns now feature APC's and heavily armed under trained SWAT or tactical response forces. Even US military personal have made the comment, all of the equipment, none of the training or discipline. If you are armed to the teeth and taught to shoot first/ask questions later, it's no surprises that your death by cops tally is so high...

For example, total Australian police shootings in the period 2008-2011 (for a population of 25 odd million or 1/13th of the US) came to /drumroll .... 14

And 7 deaths in Victoria over that time raised eyebrows.

http://theconversation.com/shoot-to-kill-the-use-of-lethal-force-by-police-in-australia-34578

US police, on the other hand, eclipse that total every single year, often by more than the per capita average (often by much more than the per capita average).

2015 (total: 150)
2014 (total: 625)
2013 (total: 342)
2012 (total: 611)
2011 (total: 165)
2010 (total: 227)
2009 (total: 63)

And it's just amazing in how many of those cases, the words "cleared of wrong doing by the district attorney, city paid out to a civil trial for wrongful death" appear. Or "shot while running away", "shot while unarmed" etc.

And to be absolutely clear, I have nothing but respect for most of the people that choose to bear that duty, but they are being trained to go to the gun first and foremost. If that is the first and last tool to resolve conflict, it's no wonder there are so many deaths...

Damn, I was trying to fit the full song title in the tags, but it leaves no room for anything else.

@deathcow: damn, did you really miss Mer de Noms? Judith? That was really a great album that stood apart from other material that was coming out at the time. I highly recommend it.

Thirteenth Step was good, but it was a little Toolish. That's not a bad thing, except that I really liked APC, so to have Tool II was a little bit of a letdown. Still a good album, though.

eMotive, the source of the above track, was lazy filler. I prefer to pretend it doesn't exist. Pet is the original song that the above is based on.

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I'm sure the Jones Family farm is fortified to the nines with all manner of single shot, semi and fully automatic weapons.

I'm also quite sure a drone attack, an APC with half a dozen soldiers or a tank would make short work of his fairy-tale brand of home security if the US government really turned on its own people.

Really Alex Jones? What an exhausting waste of resources. He's clearly an impassioned activist. He could lobby for conservative values like fiscal responsibility and governmental accountability but he's really just telling the world how angry and violent many gun-toting Americans are.

Look like em yeah, slightly misleading title though as they're not tanks. APC leading em and rest are howitzers on tracks.