Tool's 'Fear Inoculum' Released 4,869 Days after their last album, '10,000 Days'

Three major events took place in my life, recently. First, after years of financial sacrifice, we bought our first house. Second, we had our third child, a girl. And third?

The new Tool album, Fear Inoculum, was released. It had been 4,869 Days between the release of Tool's 10,000 Days and their new Fear Inoculum. That's almost 13 and-a-half years... or 160 months... or 116,856 hours... or 7,011,360 minutes... or 420,681,600 seconds, or... nevermind. I think I can speak for all Tool fans when I say that we've been waiting a long time for this...

Notice if you take the way TOOL is written, and fold it over itself,
it creates a syringe ('Inoculum').

First, a Quick Time Warp to the 90s

Going back, I started really discovering my own taste in music in the 6th grade. My first album was the Escape From LA soundtrack I bought with some money I saved from illegally working as a minor, pumping gas at a full service gas station. Escape from LA was an awesomely bad, cheesy action flick I loved, released in 1996 with a solid lineup and absolutely horrific special effects.

Man, they really don't make 'em like they used to... and thank goodness for that.

The soundtrack really struck a chord with me and inspired much of my taste, with other great music by the likes of Gravity Kills, White Zombie, Stabbing Westward, Ministry, Tori Amos, and, of course, Tool. Their track, Sweat, among others, immediately hooked me and away I went. I was already somewhat familiar with Tool's music at the time, having been somewhat scared, but oddly entranced by, their unique, dark, stop-motion music videos from when they'd play on MTV. From there, flipping through one of my video-game magazines, I found one of those thick sheets that listed maybe one or two-hundred different albums, advertised as "PICK *10* CDs, ALL FOR ONLY A PENNY!", with the obligatory explosive graphic behind it that we're all oh-so-familiar with. I excitedly penned in the little square boxes for the ones I wanted, enclosed a corroded penny in the envelope with the list and sent it off, completely not grasping the concept of 'fine print' with my rapidly changing, hormone-rattled, 11-year-old brain. If I remember correctly, my collection of music began at this moment, with the order of Opiate, Undertow, and the new AEnima Tool albums, The Downward Spiral and Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails, Antichrist Superstar and Smells Like Children by Marilyn Manson, Astro-Creep: 2000 and Supersexy Swingin' Sounds, by White Zombie, and The Crow movie soundtrack.

Anyway, I remember receiving additional CDs in the mail I never ordered, seemingly for free, keeping some and tossing others. Increasingly larger bills eventually started arriving, which I naturally ignored, and collectors naturally pursued with additional fees, interest, and messages on our answering machine. I remember the story my mom told me about how she blew up at them over the phone for being the dopes who tried collecting money from an 11-year-old child, incapable of entering into any legitimate contract on his own. They stopped calling, and I still had ten cool, new music CDs. With a newfound discovery and appreciation for music, my world opened up.

All for a single penny.

 Ahh, yes. Simpler times. 

Lateralus was released several years later, a year before my high school graduation. With each subsequent Tool album, there's a clear sense of steady growth and refinement of their sound from a previous one, but this was a huge evolution in tone that essentially retained, while somewhat transcending, their original and iconic sound, with their next 10,000 Days feeling like an expansion and slight twist on Lateralus. These changes in style, tone, and spirit from one album to the next have always been subtle, but steady, organic, transcendent, and on their own terms, while retaining their signature unique sound.

Tool also introduced and turned me on to Alex Grey, who collaborated with them
on numerous pieces of album artwork for Lateralus, 10,000 Days, and Fear Inoculum.

A common thread through much of Tool's music has long been about a cycle of realizing and integrating the Jungian shadow, of change and growth, the shedding of old skin and letting go, and transcending that which we crave and hold on to from social conditioning and base instincts. Needless to say, a lot has changed in my life in those 4,869 Days, with so many things, people, places, and parts of myself left behind. My love and appreciation for Tool's music remains, however, all the same, and as it's grown and changed, so have I.

A True Scotsman's Fan's Review... A Pneumasterpiece or Premature Inoculation?

Thirteen years. Six very long songs, broken up by four tracks of instrumentals and/or oddball sonic experimentation. Fairly par the course for a Tool album, right? Wrong. These songs are absolutely epic in length and dwarf all past Tool songs -- they each range a bare minimum of over 10 minutes to up to almost 16 minutes long. Even if you smashed Parabol and Parabola off of the Lateralus album into one track, you'd still only end up at 9:02. That may sound intimidating, because it is -- but they're all good to great pieces and feel like they're over within the length of a typical song. This is truly progressive metal, with most tracks starting off quiet, low, and simple, and building up to increasingly heavier and complicated structures over the course of the song. Basically, if Pink Floyd and Tool had a baby, that baby would be named Fear Inoculum.

Just a doctor trying to finish his rounds so he can listen to 

the new Tool album.

One thing I found interesting about the album is that each song seems to have a style that focuses on and pays tribute to that of past albums. For example, Pneuma, probably my second favorite track, has a very Lateralus feel to it. 7empest, while far more intense, heavy, and complicated, has a more old-school Tool, Opiate-esque style to it. Culling Voices starts off with some Undertow influence and ends up firmly in Opiate territory, as well. The track Fear Inoculum evokes 10,000 Days, and Invincible reminds me very much of their album AEnima.

"JOIN US."

Descending, though? Oh, my -- it's absolute perfection. Sublime, even. Descending is what happens when Lateralus grows up, gets a job, has a career, sees the kids go off to college, and sits down to watch the sun set but stays there until the sun rises. It easily competes with any of Tool's best songs and I still, after many listens, find it to be an almost emotional experience that compounds over the course of its 13 and-a-half epic minutes. Further, while I've never been a fan of 'guitar solos' and they haven't been 'a thing' for a long time, I'm surprised and happy to say that Adam Jones somehow made guitar solos cool again. Here, about 10-and-a-half minutes into the song, he works flawlessly with Danny Carey obliterating the drums and Justin Chancellor with some classic Tool bassisms to put out an amazing piece that reaches an emotional crescendo, and then, right when you think it's over -- they manage to crescendo the crescendo. None of it comes off as pretentious or as if Adam is just trying to show off, which I never liked about other guitar solos, so well fucking done on that, my dudes.

While I find the studio recording to be the best recorded version of Descending,

the live performance is really something.

There are, however, some downsides to the way the album was put together. For one, the opening bits and initial build-up in some songs can take a long time and feel a bit tedious, and I'd actually have preferred if at least most of these songs were sliced Right in Two the way they did Parabol and Parabola -- making it easier to get right to the meat of the song, if desired. In some of the songs, parts can feel like the band members are just jamming along, which can sound very impressive, but at times it can drag and could have been edited down while retaining the soul of the album and making it denser and more consistently enjoyable. 

One other thing I have mixed feelings about is the singer of Tool, Maynard James Keenan, has a much more subtle presence on most songs than ever before. Here, ole Maynard is generally singing more along the lines of his A Perfect Circle style than Tool. While it mostly works on this album, there are times that I long for, expect, and don't get that Maynard intensity or iconic scream we've all grown to love. I miss those MJK crescendos you find in so much of his best music like Vicarious, The Pot, 46 and 2, Parabola, Lateralus, Stinkfist, Aenima, Prison Sex, and even A Perfect Circle's The Doomed or Judith, or Puscifer's (another band of Maynard's) The Undertaker. To compound this, many of the lyrics also aren't as strong as past albums, though that's not to say the album is 'lyrically weak' -- it's just a very high bar and expectation that's been set by past works.

This brings me to 7empest, which most people are saying is the best song on the album. Apart from the instrumental tracks, I actually play this song the least and have trouble getting through it. While this BASED 16 minute beast starts off strong and hits on all cylinders without wasting any time, it starts falling apart for me about a third the way in, then I lose interest halfway through. It clearly involves some of the most instrumental skill and intensity on any of their albums, but it can drag, and two-thirds through I just can't do it, anymore. There are touches in the last third I really like, but it lacks strong lyrical presence and feels too often like a jam session.

Regarding general fan sentiment, many genuinely big Tool fans feel more-or-less disappointed by the album, and I can somewhat understand why. Expectations were very high and built up over a very long time, and many feel much more strongly about some of the criticisms I noted, above. While I was sold on Descending immediately, when I first heard the leaked Fear Inoculum and Invincible tracks, I was a bit underwhelmed. After additional listens, they really grew on me, and this is exactly the same process I found with the Lateralus and 10,000 Days albums which I was also initially underwhelmed by.

My recommendation? Grab the best headphones or sound system you have, put the entire Fear Inoculum album on repeat, and go pull some weeds, do some gardening, finish that puzzle, repair that motor, go out for your run, 'clean your room', or do some other activity that can put you in a hyper-focused, meditative 'zone'. With at least the songs on the album on repeat, you just might find yourself entranced in a time warp where its tendrils reach deeper into, and grab you -- no DMT or ayahuasca needed.

Though, that's not to say they won't add any value to the experience.

Final Thoughts

This is a great album with some seemingly unnecessary downsides. I feel like an ideal version of it could reach towards perfection if most songs are split in two and/or edited down a bit. If a version like that is ever released, officially or unofficially, I would jump all over it in a heartbeat and easily give it the full five flaming third-eyes. At the end of the day, I'm craving for more and can't wait to see what other work they have on the back burner.

Here's just hoping I won't be a grandfather, by then.

I'll wrap this up with a single quote that wraps up the sentiment of Fear Inoculum extremely well...

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." -- Paul Atreides, 'Dune' by Frank Herbert

Totally Arbitrary Score...