Mental Metal: A Look Back at Tool’s Ænima

Dusting ‘Em Off is a rotating, free-form feature that revisits a classic album, film, or moment in pop-culture history. This piece celebrates Tool’s acclaimed sophomore album Ænima. Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in 2016, but has been updated in 2026 to reflect the 30th anniversary of Ænima. Many musicians have been influenced by books, but there seems to be something especially literary about the genres of hard rock and metal. This goes double for horror and fantasy fiction: Led Zeppelin meditated on The Lord of the Rings, Black Sabbath wailed about “The Wizard,” and Metallica thrashed to the monster Cthulu. Others have drawn imagery out of the Bible, Norse mythology, or the bloodier epochs of European history. For their second album, Tool drew on the writings of Carl Jung, Freud’s most brilliant disciple, who gave us the language of introverts and extroverts, the idea of a consciously constructed persona, and the Jungian archetypes, of which the anima is but one. Get Tool Tickets Here Of course, the title of Tool’s second album isn’t Anima, and that’s very important. I can’t think of a better introduction to this notoriously dense band than that word Ænima; lyrically,...