Tool is a progressive rock band from Los Angeles, California. Tool is most noted for combining hard rock with progressive structures, strange time signatures and lyrics that range from anger to philosophical and social matters. They formed around 1990.
Emerging with a heavy metal sound on their first release, when the genre was dominated by thrash metal, they were later seen at the top of the alternative metal movement with the release of their second full-length studio album ?nima in 1996. After an ongoing evolution of their sound and continuous efforts to unify musical experimentation, visual arts, and a message of personal evolution on Lateralus (2001), their most recent album 10,000 Days (2006), as well as respective tours, they are generally described as a style-transgressing act and part of progressive and art rock.
Their aspirational work features exceptionally long or complex releases, controversial lyrics and cover art, and unorthodox music videos, which results in a rather ambivalent relationship between the band and today’s music industry, at times marked by censorship, and the band’s ongoing struggle for privacy.