10,000 DAYS

To its legion of fans, everything the band Tool does is an event, but the elaborate plan behind their sporadic release schedule-roughly five years, on average, between albums-is due primarily to the time and effort the band packs into each successive effort. To title their fourth album 10,000 DAYS, then, isn't as much an exaggeration as it would seem. Tool are America's most consummate mainstream perfectionists, revitalizing progressive rock to the grandeur of its '70s heyday, but updated with technocratic tension and existential dread not known to previous generations.