“Stinkfist” by Tool

"Stinkfist" opens Ænima, Tool's second album, from 1996, and it was the only commercial single the record produced, though the title bothered enough people that it was sometimes referred to simply as "Track #1".

It's a slow-grinding, hypnotic slab of progressive metal. Adam Jones' guitar coils and lurches, Danny Carey's drums and percussion lock into knotted, rolling patterns, Justin Chancellor's bass throbs underneath, and Maynard James Keenan's voice slides from a murmur to a snarl and back again.

Keenan wrote the words, and the music came from Carey, Jones, Keenan and former bassist Paul D'Amour; it's one of four songs on the album that D'Amour had a hand in writing. David Bottrill produced it with the band, recorded it and mixed it, and he gives the whole churning thing a heavy, claustrophobic clarity.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.