Lateralus

Lateralus was Tool's third album. In 1997 the band and their label, Volcano, sued each other, and the dispute halted new music until a settlement in early December 1998 gave the band its own label through Volcano Entertainment II; the album's copyright is shared by Tool Dissectional and Volcano Entertainment II. In 2000, while Maynard James Keenan was busy with A Perfect Circle, the other three rehearsed almost daily, revisiting four years of riffs and ideas. The band produced it with David Bottrill, as on Ænima, recording from October 2000 to January 2001 at Cello Studios in Hollywood and at The Hook, Big Empty Space and The Lodge in North Hollywood. The instruments went to analogue tape and every vocal to Pro Tools at Keenan's home; the long scream in "The Grudge", Bottrill recalls, was a first take. The title track was first called "9-8-7" after the time signatures of Justin Chancellor's bass riff; when Danny Carey noticed that 987 is a Fibonacci number, Keenan wrote his lyrics to follow the sequence. It was mixed at Larrabee Sound North in North Hollywood and mastered at Gateway Mastering Studios in Portland, Maine, by 25 January 2001; the CD is HDCD. Announced for 17 April 2001, the release was moved in March to 15 May. In January a title, Systema Encéphale, was reported and the band's site posted invented titles, then announced the real one on 28 January. The album sold more than 555,200 copies in its first week and entered the Billboard 200 at number one, the band's first chart-topper; it also reached number one in Australia and Canada, 16 in the UK and 28 in Japan, where Zomba Records Japan issued it on 16 May. The RIAA certified it gold and platinum on 19 June 2001, double platinum on 5 August 2003 and triple platinum on 15 April 2021, and "Schism" won the Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 2002. The booklet stacks clear sheets that reveal the human body layer by layer: the overlays were Adam Jones's idea; Alex Grey drew them and devised the flaming eye.