Tool's secret mind-blowing album: The Holy Gift

Tool are one of the most mysterious and ‘deep’ thinking bands, not just in modern metal but in pop culture generally.

Exploring everything from prison sex to psychedelic encounters with inter-dimensional beings, with a healthy dose of sacred geometry and the occult, the band have proved that you don’t have to sing cheesy love songs to score a number 1 record.

The band have inspired a dedicated cult following that outstrips almost any other in terms of fanaticism, with many dedicated disciples using their music as a gateway to spiritual experimentation.

With fans like this, there are no doubt going to be some theories around the band that are ridiculous. However, the ‘discovery’ of the band’s secret album, known as The Holy Gift, is one of the most intriguing and exciting music conspiracy theories around.

What is The Holy Gift?

In short, The Holy Gift is the name given to a re-arrangement of the band’s groundbreaking 2001 release Lateralus. The album, which is considered by many as the band’s opus, saw them break into full art-rock territory, whilst maintaining their progressive flair and aggressive riffs.

Lyrically, the lyrics centre around the human experience, exploring the concepts of life, religion and psychedelics across 79 minutes.

Thing’s get really deep with the record’s title track Lateralus, which follows the Fibonacci sequence of numbers with its lyrical syllables.

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The Fibonacci pattern is a formula where each number is the sum of the two numbers proceeding, i.e. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 and so on. It’s a formula that, when plotted, creates a spiral pattern that appears throughout nature, i.e. on seashells, the hair on the human head, spiralling tornado vortexes and more.

This is explored in Lateralus, with the lyrics to the first verse going as follows.

[1] black[1] then
[2] white are
[3] all I see
[5] in my infancy
[8] red and yellow then came to be
[5] reaching out to me
[3] lets me see

[2] there is
[1] so
[1] much
[2] more and
[3] beckons me
[5] to look through to these
[8] infinite possibilities

Lyrically, the song goes on to describe a psychedelic trip and a broadening of the human experience, with the number of syllables peaking at 13 (the number of songs on the record, coincidently).

Check out the title track below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tcW-j7KFgY

That’s all well and good in its own right, but the use of the method has led many fans to wonder if the Fibonacci concept should be employed across the entire record, and if so, how would that sound?

After all, the lyrics to fan-favourite Schism, from the same record, seem to invite listeners to explore things further.

“I know the pieces fit ’cause I watched them fall away”, sings Maynard James Keenan, pleading with listeners that they are “Doomed to crumble unless we grow and strengthen our communication.”

Check out our definitive ranking of every Tool album

So, how would this concept work when employed across the entire record?

What fans have done is split the album in half into a pair of figurative ‘spirals’, with the number 13 at the middle.

Starting in the middle with the paired tracks Parabol & Parabola (6,7) the number sequence goes as follows; 6, 7, 5, 8, 4, 9, 13, 1, 12, 2, 11, 3, 10, or [6,7] [5,8] [4,9] [13] [1,12] [2,11] [3,10].

Parabol
Parabola
Schism
Ticks & Leeches
Mantra
Lateralus
Faaid De Oiad
The Grudge
Triad
Eon Blue Apocalypse
Reflection
The Patient
Disposition

Perks of the new order

When listening through the record in this order, there are some striking features that make it hard to shake the idea that this could be the true album order.

For starters, the transition between Schism into Ticks & Leeches is one smooth drum break, making far more sense than the abrupt ending of Schism that occurs in the original pressing.

In addition, every two bars the drumbeat in the intro to Ticks & Leechers falls back into the metre established in Schism.

Elsewhere, Mantra, a strange interlude that sounds like choking, is given context with the final line of Ticks & Leechers which sits on the line “I hope you choke!”, coming immediately before the track in the new order.

Lateralus sits right in the middle of this new order, concluding the first spiral and kicking off the second, with The Grudge getting things into gear for part two. Voila – you have two musical spirals! Check out the full opus below!