Tool released Ænima on vinyl on September 17, 1996, with the CD following on October 1. Their second studio album paired a changed lineup with a producer whose background reached well beyond Los Angeles metal. Across songs such as “Stinkfist” and “Forty Six & 2,” the band developed that partnership into a record with more room for rhythmic complexity, extended arrangements and unsettling humor.
David Bottrill was surprised to receive the call. In a 2012 interview with MusicRadar, he recalled hearing Undertow and wondering whether Tool had mistaken him for someone else. They knew exactly whom they wanted. Adam Jones admired his work with David Sylvian and Robert Fripp, while Maynard James Keenan had been listening to recordings associated with Peter Gabriel’s Real World studio. Those credits made him an appealing choice for a band seeking a different approach to its next album.
Bottrill’s account also underlined how carefully Tool worked. Jones shaped guitar parts through the force and placement of his picking, bends and tone. The producer described musicians who arrived prepared and kept refining performances without sacrificing their feel. “It was a great collaborative process,” he told MusicRadar.
That collaboration began during a significant change inside the band. Justin Chancellor replaced founding bassist Paul D’Amour in 1995, joining Jones, Keenan and drummer Danny Carey. Some material already carried D’Amour’s contributions, including songwriting credits on “Stinkfist” and “Pushit.” Chancellor’s debut therefore connected work begun by the earlier lineup with ideas developed by the new one.
“Forty Six & 2” put the bass at the center of that new configuration. Chancellor establishes the opening figure before Jones adds clipped guitar accents, with the arrangement leaving each instrument room to move. As MusicRadar’s examination of the song explains, its largely 4/4 foundation gives way to sections in 7/8. The changing accents are part of the song’s momentum, with Carey’s drums expanding the pattern instead of simply marking time underneath it.
The album also allowed those larger arrangements to coexist with short interruptions. “Intermission” recasts the riff from “Jimmy” on organ before the full song follows. “Useful Idiot” uses the sound of a skipping record, turning the end of the first vinyl side into a joke at the listener’s expense. The sequence made pauses and misdirection part of the record’s character alongside the longer songs.
Bill Hicks connected that humor to a more pointed strain of anger. Tool dedicated the album to the comedian, whose voice appears in samples on the closing “Third Eye.” His imagined California catastrophe also fed into “Ænema,” where Keenan pictures Los Angeles being washed away. The album and song use different spellings, but both place abrasive comedy alongside the band’s interest in transformation.
“Stinkfist” carried the album’s visual identity onto television through a video directed by Jones. MTV aired it under the title “Track #1,” avoiding the song’s actual name while putting the clip into rotation. The network’s retitling became another example of Tool’s work reaching a broad audience without fitting comfortably into the presentation expected of it.
At the 1998 Grammys, “Stinkfist” received a nomination for Best Short Form Music Video, while “Ænema” won Best Metal Performance. The collaboration with Bottrill continued on Lateralus in 2001, extending a working relationship that had started with the producer wondering whether Tool had called the right person.
