#favourite records

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On the Record with Calum Hood

Rolling Stone Australia, 6 June 2025

The 5SOS member takes part in Rolling Stone AU/NZ’s On the Record series ahead of the release of his debut solo album

In this new Rolling Stone AU/NZ series, we get to know the music tastes of artists through their favourite records. Next up, 5 Seconds of Summer’s latest solo experimentalist Calum Hood.  

FULL ARTICLE

New meme just dropped...

[tomsmusictaste]

jumping on this bandwagon

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31. Tool - Lateralus (2001)

This album is a bit of an anomaly in this list. The only other metal album on here is Isis’ Panopticon at number 99, which is an album that veers close enough to post-rock to not stand out hugely amongst the general genre trends present. This isn’t because I don’t like metal, but more because I find it a very difficult genre to find a way in to (a trait reflected in turn by the large amount of metal fans that tend to be unimpressed by any music that isn’t loud, abrasive and head-bangable). Metal seems to me to be one of the least self-aware genres of music, and in many ways the most separate. Where the best music from other genres tends to sidestep or subvert the tropes and clichés to create something original, metal absolutely revels in them – be it operatic or screamed vocals, sludgy guitar riffing or pulverising drumming – metal tends to beget more metal. As an indie kid at heart, this flies in the face of all my instincts. I am conditioned to appreciate genre bending, textural variety and musical subversion, and cringe away from anything that lacks irony or trades in direct, uninhibited displays of expression. Basically, this is all just a roundabout way of saying that whilst I like some metal, I find most of it to be really cheesy. Lateralus is something else though. It’s undoubtedly a straight up metal album; released at the ascendancy of nu-metal (the absolute pinnacle of metal as clichéd, cheesy bullshit), packed full of distorted guitar sludge and ludicrous drum heroics, and packaged in a sleeve that Spinal Tap would probably consider tasteful. Yet at the same time, it subverts all of these clichés – the ‘none more black’ album artwork peels back to reveal the album’s dual themes of psychology and spirituality, whilst the churning guitars and drums form one solid unit that allows for a surprising depth of dynamics, with darkly incandescent atmospherics as well as surging, epic breakdowns. Singer Maynard James Keenan is anything but a traditional metal vocalist; delivering rage with a seething beauty, his voice as delicate and nuanced as it is powerful and emotive. Barely anything on Lateralus is by the book. ‘The Grudge’ begins in a flurry of teeth gnashing anger, but culminates in hand claps, tribal stomping and a fluid, arcing guitar solo that precedes a gloriously cathartic finale. ‘Schism’ rides on an angular, twisting guitar riff and a dense, shifting time signature, before a brief burst of pure aggression explodes out of the speakers and then tumbles down into a looping, fluid mid section. The title track is a musical representation of the Fibonacci sequence, but with an anthemic chorus that shatters the moody mathematical verses in between. The three part back end of the album ‘Disposition’, ‘Reflection’ and ‘Triad’ pushes even further into atmospheric territory with the inclusion of eastern inspired drumming and a 20 minute long song cycle that ebbs and flows like prime Pink Floyd. ‘Ticks & Leeches’ is the most obviously metal moment on the record, built on a thunderous drum pattern, some grinding guitar riffs and Keenan screeching and seething like a man possessed – but it still contains a slow, creeping breakdown that sounds like something off an early Mogwai album. The one-two punch of ‘Parabol’ and ‘Parabola’ is the album’s pinnacle, with the shimmering, melodic stillness of the former bursting into the epic sweep of its dramatic counterpart. ‘Parabola’ is the single best song Tool have ever produced, it’s tight, razor sharp riffs and whiplash inducing dynamic shifts carrying it’s haunting melody toward it’s epic, strobe-lit, slow motion finale. I can’t think of any other albums that sound like this, with it’s combination of matte black metal tones, atmospheric, complex musicality and accessible melodic sensibility. It’s like hearing all the best elements of Metallica, Pink Floyd and Radiohead combined but without any of those bands defining features, allowing Tool to forge a sonic identity all of their own. If more bands aspired to these heights then there would definitely be a lot more metal on this list. As it stands it seems we’re just going to have to wait another 12 years for their next album to finally appear.

Also listen to: Ænima

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Your favourite record releases of 2016?

Ayyyyye, that’s a question I love to answer. Thank you anon!(I’m gonna link playlists so anyone who wants to give these records a listen, go ahead ;D)

1. If I’m The Devil // letlive.

2. Seal The Deal And Let’s Boogie // Volbeat

3. All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us // Architects

4. Incarnate // Killswitch Engage

5. Smile // Cane Hill

6. Honor Is Dead // Wovenwar

7. Getaway // Adelitas Way

8. Hardwired… To Self-Destruct // Metallica

9. Bad Vibrations // A Day To Remember

10. Unleashed // Skillet

11. Clearview // Poets of the Fall

12. ZOAX // ZOAX

I hope this helped you in some way, anon and thank you again for asking :D 

[zurich-snows]

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