I really, really wanted to like this.
Unfortunately, I don't like this. Here is my initial thoughts that I wrote somewhere else first:
About 2 minutes in, I really thought I was going to like this song. But then it all just fell apart for me, where the lyricism (or seeming lack thereof) and the relapse back to Lateralus derivative instrumentation fail to deliver anything noteworthy to me.
Where Opiate is was kick in the pants, Undertow is a punch in the mouth. Where Ænima has your brain hit in the gut, Lateralus is where your mind tries to expand, well, itself. 10,000 days? I don't know what it is. I can't make heads or tails of it, still. Not that I am trying much. And this new song? Again, smacks of too much Lateralus detritus for me to "take it seriously." Not to mention that the lyrics fail to land anything at all to me. But Tool albums felt like a progression, from the up-front nature of Optiate, to the beginnings of that concealment on Undertow and Ænima, to the more fully realized abstractions in most of Lateralus. These later works feel, to me, like pastiches of Lateralus, a parody of it's own style.
Now, of course, I am fully not the same person who listened Ænima in 1996. So, maybe the issue is just me. But this is not what I could call music I am interested in hearing. It still upsets me, since, as one could probably tell from my user name, I was a fan back in the day. I am still a fan of their work up to Lateralus. But this newer stuff, it's just not what I can bear. But, like I said, maybe it's just me.