this is something I wrote that descibes them the best I can
Colors of Tool
There is no other band like Tool, they defy most mortal description, but I shall do the best I can. Dark and tortured, moving and touching, forcing its way into your deepest consciousness, this bands music grabs hold of those parts of you that you are trying not to look at and drags you through them. The hard, intense driving, and encompassing musicianship physically drains you. Maynard’s primal lyrics are as though he’s reaching inside to his most honest, bleeding parts, and throwing them before us, and then it becomes beautiful.
Tool is the dark tunnel with the light at the end. The world of Tool is one of horror imagery, anger, terror, sadness and pain, yet also one of hope, beauty, inspiration and calmness. Mystic and abstract, while at the same time direct and powerful. Maynard’s lyrics are magnificently delivered by a voice that can hit you straight through your spine, but also comfort and relax you, healing your wounds. Tools music paints pictures in colors defined by the sound of their albums as a whole. Opiate with its manic shades of orange, eerie purple, and utter blackness. Undertow’s contradicting colorful darkness, the brownish tint of an old picture and mystical shades of occasional red and flesh-like pink. Aenima with the glowing greens and blues, the burning whites and deep blacks. Then there is Lateralus that goes back to a penetrating red, an almost transparent black, and mellow tones of white and yellow. Tool is my tunnel, and I will follow the light to the end.