re: Who is the better drummer: Lars Ulrich (Metallica) or Danny Carey (Tool)?

Danny Carey by a looooooooonnnnggggg shot. I swear that dude has independent brains in each of his arms and legs. He can play different time signatures, not just within the same song, but within the same beat. Top 5 drummer of ALL time, and that's including the crazy jazz/fusion type drummers.

One of the places Danny Carey excels, isn't just in his technicality, but the musical-ness (is that a word?) of his playing. It actually reminds me of the way David Gilmour plays guitar solos with the dynamics and perfect crescendoing. There are drummers that can pull off fast technical shite in a drum solo, but he makes that kind of stuff work within songs. Hell his drum solos themselves are musical as hell.....he isn't just banging around trying to hot dog.

My top 5 drummers on just skill alone would have to include (in no particular order):

Danny Carey
Bill Bruford
Buddy Rich
Billy Cobham
Jon Theodore

If I made a list of best rock drummer it would obviously look differently, but just on chops alone these 5 are tops for me.