I couldn't disagree more. This is the opinion most people hold about Tool due to their lack of knowledge on the subject of musical composition. Here's an time signature transcription/analysis their song Schism
The song starts in 5/4 for one measure followed by 21 measures of 6/4 (or 5/8 and 7/8 alternating), up to the first interlude, which is a bar of 3/8, three bars of 13/8, and a bar of 10/8. (This can be also interpreted as four 13/8 bars, but played with a 3/8 upbeat.) The next verse is eight bars all in 6/4 followed by another interlude that fits the same pattern as the first. This brings us to the "The poetry that comes..." section, which is four bars of 6/4 followed by one bar of 11/8. Another eight-bar verse in 6/4 follows, with an interlude containing the same as before, except this time the final 10/8 bar is replaced with an 11/8 bar setting up the middle section, which is four bars of 7/4 before settling into a pattern of alternating 12/8 and 15/8, one bar each, twelve times, containing the "Cold silence..." lyrics. At this point, at the end of the word "compassion", there are three bars of 4/4 (which nearly sounds foreign at this point), a bar of 2/4, and four bars of 4/4 setting up the "Between supposed lovers" section, which is two bars of 9/8 followed by a bar of 10/8, that pattern again, a single bar of 9/8 followed by a 13/8 bar. This leads to an alternating set of 9/8 and 5/8, appearing four times before a bar of 9/8 and a bar of 6/8. The ending "I know the pieces fit" lyrics bring back the 6/4 meter for eight bars, followed by eight bars of 4/4 to end the song.
Most bands use straight 4/4 with a mix of 3/4 thrown in here and there. One could argue that 6/8 is used a bit but it's almost always 4/4 with 8th note triplets being played (which can sometimes give the effect of a hemiola). And if you knew much about the process of recording that Tool uses then you would know that Jones and Chancellor compose the songs then Carey puts down the percussion followed by Keenan's lyrics. There are NO OTHER mainstream bands of any genre that compose songs as complex as Tool. Not that you have to like them because of that but to say that they are not technical is an assinine statement.
1: Not playing 4/4 does not make them technically proficient. Thousands of bands play those kinds of time signatures.
2: No member of Tool can show any unique technical ability on their instrument, neither in speed or accuracy.
3: Most of their songs are boring minor based without any kind of melodically innovation. The guitarist play a few boring arpeggios here and there, with no strong sense of melody. Their songs are based on boring studio overdubbs.
If you base your technical argument on some stupid time signature analysis, you should know that technical proficiency also includes speed, accuracy and being able to use innovative melodical concepts. Most of Tools music are diatonic 3 chord stuff with some vocal layers here and there. Thus, you can not claim that Tool has any great knowledge of music composition. Theoretically, their music is not much more advanced than most stupid rockbands if we take the time signature element out of the equation.
Most 16 year olds can play most of Tools music.
In other words, if you are going to argument for Tools music, you better learn more music theory than being able to tell what time signatures a Tool song is based on.
The drummer and bass player knows their shit, but they are nothing spectacular, nor are Tools songwriting. If you like them, fine, but they are nothing spectacular in a technical sense.
EDIT: In the mainstream arena, they might be a bit advanced. In the real world of music, they are nothing.
