"Darkest" Album Ever?...

[IsaacW]

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Lateralus by Tool.

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Actually, I think it's the opposite.

Reflection, for instance, is about hopefulness for the species as a whole, if only we can put aside our egos.

Ticks and Leeches is about anger, and letting those who bargain for ruin just get, well...ruined.

The Grudge is about letting go of pointless animosity.

Schism is about opening the avenues of communication.

Parabol/Parabola is about having some spiritual connection to the world.

The Patient is about, uh, ok--it's a little dark.

Lateralus is about pushing the limits of one's experience.

Triad is a freakin great instrumental.

I know I did them out of order, but I was just winging it.

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To me, Lateralus is about the sorry state of our species, not hopefulness. I'm a pretty cynical bastard, though, and don't hold out much hope for us "put[ting] aside our egos," to stop "bargain[ing] for ruin," or "[re-]opening the avenues of communication."

On the Parabol/Parabola spiritual connection theme, you can reorder the songs on Lateralus to generate something that resembles a single work, a "Holy Gift" as it were. There's a post about it here and, though the guy kinda goes off the deep end about it, the reordering is very powerful, especially if you remove the silence between tracks and match the ending beats of certain songs with the starting beats of the following songs.