After hearing a David Sylvian/Robert Fripp album that David Bottrill had produced, Tool decided to give him a call. While the band liked her and felt she was a good engineer, they wanted to work with someone more creative and hands-on for their next record. The first two Tool releases, the Opiate EP and Undertow, were produced by Sylvia Massey. David Bottrill barely knew who Tool were when they asked him to produce Aenima Musically, Tool took the first major step towards becoming a true progressive-rock band, as song lengths topped the eight-minute mark and the scope of their sonic pallette defied all easily classified genre boundaries.ġ. Tool's previous EP and album plumbed the darkness depths of the human psyche, but Aenima aimed for soulful inspiration and spiritual awakening - while still retaining some of the group's characteristically sophomoric sense of humor. 'Anima' is Latin for 'soul' and an 'enema' is, of course, a process that flushes out waste from the intestines by injecting saline solution into the anus. The title of the album hinted at its content.

However, on September 17th, 1996, a little more than three years removed from the release of Undertow, Tool took an even more monumental leap, into the psychedelic, prog-metal stratosphere with the release of Aenima. They went platinum, played Lollapalooza's main stage, and their stunning videos for 'Sober' and 'Prison Sex' earned the band regular play on MTV, thanks to guitarist Adam Jones' visual genius and background in movie special effects. With their first full-length, Undertow, Tool unexpectedly broke into the alt-rock mainstream.

Tool aenima album art