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The first single from 'Lateralus', 'Schism' won Tool the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2002. The track's structure mirrors its subject: a relationship fracturing under the weight of miscommunication, the verses cycling through images of decay and collapse. Maynard James Keenan's lyrics return obsessively to the line 'I know the pieces fit', a mantra of certainty undermined by everything around it.
The song builds its tension through odd time signatures and a bass line that shifts beneath the vocal, the instrumental arrangement as restless as the relationship it describes. Keenan frames the breakdown as a failure of language and proximity, the space between two people widening into something irreparable. The repeated invocation of communication, strengthening it or watching it atrophy, becomes the song's central concern, the diagnosis offered without a cure.
"Schism" is a single by TOOL, from the album Lateralus, released 14th May 2001. The track is 6:48 long. It's filed under Metal. Full lyrics are available below. Dork has published 2 articles about TOOL.
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