Tool: Fear Inoculum

After 13 years since the release of 10,000 Days, their last studio album, Tool finally got their shit together and they're releasing a new album August 30th. No new tracks yet, but something is bound to come out in a not too terribly distant future.

Hell yes!!! 

He's a busy dude. Fronting 3 bands and all. I can only hope for more 10 - 13 minute songs.

Been looking forward to this! I remember reading an article from Tool that was in Kerrang! Magazine - If memory serves right it was back around late '06 or '07, not too long after the 10,000 days release. They were asked a question along the lines of "Are there plans in the works for the next album, or do you plan to tour for a while?" and they replied "we make an album when we want to make a fucking album, you'll just have to wait."

...and wait we did, heh.

Looking forward to it, I remember hearing some new song (instrumental if I remember correctly) on a live video which sounded decent. That was a couple years ago though, so who knows if it'll be on the album?

This may have been posted elsewhere, but I heard yesterday Tool is finally on digital distribution for streaming/purchase.

I see at least the albums I recognize on Spotify as of now.

I never sat down and listened to them and now I look forward to doing so.

I'm patiently waiting for a special edition CD to pop up at retailers. I'm ordering that shit as soon as humanly possible.

Title track and pre-order will be there on Wednesday.

IT'S TIME:

Oh man that was brilliant! They haven't lost their touch I see, true to the Tool sound. Can't wait for the rest of the album now. :)

Pretty good stuff indeed though I'd be lying if said that it isn't a bit of a letdown too. This song is not in any way, shape or form surprising - it's Tool by the book. You could probably swap it with Reflection on Lateralus and nobody would notice. That's also the same impression I got from the live recordings of Descending and Invincible - it's just more of the same. Don't get me wrong, it's nice. But one of the cool things about Tool has always been the element of unpredictability. Every one of their albums is distinct. I still remember when I heard Vicarious for the first time on a radio while in a car with my dad (fun fact: we also listened to Fear Inoculum together when the song was uploaded yesterday :)) and after 30sec I was like "ok, this is something new, it's not like what they've done before!". But with this song... like I said, more of the same. It's really good but it's what we already know. I was kind of hoping to see a bit of a different side of Tool. Hopefully we will when the full album comes out.

17 hours ago, Touchdown said:

I was kind of hoping to see a bit of a different side of Tool.

Tough crowd. I think it's smart of them to stick to their core sound when reappearing over a decade late. Had they changed, you can bet the internet masses would grab their pitchforks as usual and assert the all-too-common mob mentality against the band, heh. But we don't have the full album yet, there's still time for a few surprising songs!

Super disappointed with the lyrics... I mean MJK has rarely made sense with regards to his poetry, but there was brilliance in the notational composition of his singing. Inoculum sounds like single session on the spot idea farting with all the delays between note changes, or the christina aguilera style flourishes, both are signs of "I need a second to think of what to do next".

sounds like a lateralus outtake...this is self-plagarism of "reflection".

amazing bass as usual, but the song makes me crave caffine. i hope the rest of the album is a little more interesting.

On 8/8/2019 at 11:36 AM, Touchdown said:

Pretty good stuff indeed though I'd be lying if said that it isn't a bit of a letdown too. This song is not in any way, shape or form surprising - it's Tool by the book. You could probably swap it with Reflection on Lateralus and nobody would notice. That's also the same impression I got from the live recordings of Descending and Invincible - it's just more of the same. Don't get me wrong, it's nice. But one of the cool things about Tool has always been the element of unpredictability. Every one of their albums is distinct. I still remember when I heard Vicarious for the first time on a radio while in a car with my dad (fun fact: we also listened to Fear Inoculum together when the song was uploaded yesterday :)) and after 30sec I was like "ok, this is something new, it's not like what they've done before!". But with this song... like I said, more of the same. It's really good but it's what we already know. I was kind of hoping to see a bit of a different side of Tool. Hopefully we will when the full album comes out.

Exact same thoughts on the new song. It's good for sure, but it just sounds like.. Tool, which isn't necessarily bad, just not as fun to listen to. I was REALLY hoping to hear them twist up the sound a bit as they usually do with a new record, but we'll just have to wait and see. I want MJK to go off a bit more and the band to follow suit and for all we know as of right this moment they just may have some of that waiting for us deeper on the record. At least we know that it doesn't flat out suck I guess.

Apparently this is the tracklist:

1.  Fear Inoculum
2.  Pneuma
3.  Invincible
4.  Descending
5.  Culling Voices
6.  Chocolate Chip Trip
7.  7empest

Bonus tracks:

Litanie contre la Peur

Legion Inoculant

Mockingbeat

Been listening to it, on repeat!

Thought the new song was great, sounded like something right off of Lateralus. Doesn't beat Korn's upcoming album as my most anticipated album right now, but definitely looking forward to it.

@Unitron Yes, Korn's latest stuff has been incredible so far. Just saw them Sunday with Alice in Chains and they were friggin amazing! 

Still looking forward to the new Tool record though. I think there will be some nice surprises in it for us

Great to hear! I just missed them, they were somewhat near me but I didn't find out about it until the day before. Haven't been to a concert in while, hopefully I can get to a good one soon, last concert I saw was Anthrax/Killswitch Engage early last year.

Still haven't listened to any new material. Waiting to have the CD in my hands before I hear anything. Want to experience it all fresh.

Doing the same thing with the upcoming Opeth album.

Well... it's out. Upon the first listen, all the songs blend together with maybe the exception of Chocolate Chip Trip since it's instrumental and 7empest. 7empest is perhaps the best since it picks up the intensity and it had the instrumental bridge to cleanse the palette of whatever full hour of music there was before it. 86 minutes and 10 tracks for an album wouldn't be as bad if some of the songs actually stood out. With Tool being so old and with me being so bored with the first 2/3rds of the album, I was left to wonder, would this have made Tool a star back in the day? I think 7empest would, but Tool used to be fun and have silly songs that are even still pertinent jabs at media. I also feel Mockingbeat could have been put somewhere in the first 60 minutes to break up the monotony even if there are two other shorter songs between the abundant number of 10+ minute jams.

Maybe this will grow on me.

I have listened to the album twice so far and I think overally it's pretty cool. It's neat and pleasant but it has the exact same problem that I had with the title track. It's Tool by the book. In fact while listening I kept noticing hey, that part sounds like Schism! Oh, that one sounds like The Patient! This one like Pushit live, this one like Wings, this one like Jambi... I'm not sure if those are deliberate references or maybe they're just running out of ideas. But either way it feels exceedingly familiar to the point of sounding exactly like some of their old songs.

That's the first issue I have with it. The second is what geo mentioned above: the first five songs sound so alike, the overall vibe and tempo is very similiar. Nothing really exciting or surprising happens. Compare that to 10000 Days where the album starts out with the bang and then brings it down a bit with Wings. Then The Pot brings back the dynamics in a completely different way than Vicarious. Then it slows down again only to explode with Rosetta Stoned. The same thing happens on other Tool albums. But Fear Inoculum is very stale in that regard, it's just the same atmosphere and tempo for the first hour. Then FINALLY something changes with Chocolate Chip Trip and some energy comes back in 7empest but that's about it. Even 7empest is pretty tame all in all - it sounds like it could have been super heavy and epic but it isn't.

There's not a single track where I'd be like "yeah, I gotta listen to that on repeat!". It's mostly "it's cool, it's nice"... but nothing that would make me want to break the replay button. It's a good record but it definitely suffers a lot from monotony and lack of changes throughout the whole thing.

According to the interviews I've been reading the band had an idea to make an 80 minute song and I feel this is as close as they come to doing it with how similar the tone and vibe is. @touchdown is right that you can pick elements out from other songs. Just as I can do with Nine Inch Nails songs. Musical crutches that managed to sound similar, but at this time of my second listening the other stuff that they've recreated just sounds better, more passionate, more intense, and fresher. Similar riffs and sounds are just everywhere that it sounds like they took B-sides from Lateralus and 10,000 Days and just added them to the album.

Listening to it a second time, it's like Fear Inoculum picks up at like 8 minutes in. Pneuma picks up 8 minutes in, even if it picks up to a point that it sounds like a past Tool song.

I think 7empest would be the "repeat" song... but that's it. Aenema, Undertale, 10,000 Days, Lateralus, and Opiate all have several songs for repeat, even if Radio won't play some of the risque or 10+ minute songs. My local metal / rock station even had some kind of PSA that they're not allowed to play the new Tool song until there's a 7 minute version. It's not that they don't want to, it's because their corporate overlords have rules. Some radio stations won't play songs over 5 minutes.

On a side note, I am so happy Tool is back on Streaming after like a 10+ year legal absence. I can finally get rid of all my CD players. Going digital is a good way to get those plays when radio might be like 10 minute songs? We could either play you or 2 - 3 other songs. Although I notice that DVD / VHS album doesn't seem to be on the digital services. When they all say "complete discography" that is a glaring omission. It does have a CD in it!!!

After writing this, I heard about Tool drama... so I looked it up. They were caught in a legal dispute that lasted 8 years? The guitarist had a friend that did art that appeared in the album and that art wasn't credited properly so the artist took up legal action and then Tool had insurance for this sort of thing so they took it up with their insurance company. Then the insurance company turned around and sued them for a technicality and Tool sued them back when in hindsight Tool should have just dealt with the art lawsuit on their own. Supposedly millions of dollars spent in legal fees... good thing they had those millions of dollars being a famous band. The insurance company kept opting to push the date back and wasting time and money, probably as a tactic. Then the trial finally happened and it switched venues and a different judge that probably wouldn't allow that shit to happen.

Gotta laugh at the fact all these articles are from 2015 saying we could see new material by the end of the year. Here we are 4+ years later. Anyway, good that they have something fresh out and maybe they will keep the ball rolling to get more material out every 2 - 5 years again.

I feel bad for the friend who made the art that took it to court. Maynard talks about him getting death threats over the years for not making a new album? What about this artist that triggered the whole thing that supposedly delayed this album by 8 years? ... then another 4+ years because Tool takes time and they're older with kids now. Amazingly Rammstien has kept the same 6 guys for what 25 years now?

Sorry for that long rant. I don't usually get to talk about Tool to anyone for the past decade or so.

So, I wanted to get a physical copy, but the price changed my mind in a snap, especially since it's literally an order of magnitude cheaper on iTunes.

Is 80-100 bucks even a normal price for a CD album at launch? I don't have too many CD albums, and the ones I do have have all been released for quite some time when I bought them, so I genuinely have no idea.

20 hours ago, Rathori said:

So, I wanted to get a physical copy, but the price changed my mind in a snap, especially since it's literally an order of magnitude cheaper on iTunes.

 

Is 80-100 bucks even a normal price for a CD album at launch? I don't have too many CD albums, and the ones I do have have all been released for quite some time when I bought them, so I genuinely have no idea.

You're right. $45 for a physical copy, but it does come with a 4" screen for visuals.

$80 - $100 is never a normal price. It's literally $11 - $18 depending where you buy it from. I remember the outrage when Disturbed had its debut and it was hot and places wanted $24 for it.

As for the Tool physical copy, I found this:

According to an official description of Fear Inoculum, the limited edition CD “includes a CD in a tri-fold Soft Pack Video Brochure featuring a 4" HD rechargeable screen with exclusive video footage, a USB charging cable, a 2 watt speaker and a 36 page insert book and MP3 download card.”

Read More: Tool's 'Fear Inoculum' Physical Copy Will Include HD Video Screen | https://loudwire.com/tool-fear-inoculum-video-screen-speakers/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

Here is a look at the wow factor. The insanity of including a 4" screen in 80,000 copies (from what I've read) of this thing:

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/tool-fear-inoculum-packaging/

It does look awesome. I've got all their physical copies and the VHS boxed set behind me.

@geo That's pretty neat that you have all of their physical copies including the boxset! I have a few boxed sets from bands such as: Alice in Chains Music Bank boxed set, a few Nirvana boxed sets (one is an old bootleg boxed set from 1994-ish that's pretty rare), a Metallica one, a Cannibal Corpse one, a Smashing Pumpkins singles one, and a Silverchair singles one. I found them all locally too.

I do own just the VHS from the Tool boxed set as i found it for a few bucks at a store on clearance years ago but i don't own the CD or box. I have all of Tools main albums on CD and a few on vinyl (re-issues) but not this new album (yet).

I plan on buying it at some point but at the moment i'm not in a Tool listening mood. I tend to get into a certain listening mood with bands and just binge on everything they released for like a few weeks and then move on to another band.

I still can't believe this is like $45.00 though. Sometimes i buy stuff used but i can just imagine that this would be either missing the included items or it could be damaged somehow (screen could be scratched up ect.) if were to buy this used sometime down the road instead of brand new right now.

Oh yeah btw, i used to have a Tool Lateralus tour poster (not sure if it is a real one or a copy but it has tour dates) hung up in my bedroom for like 8+ years and i recently just took it down. I got it from a local CD store that closed years ago. It was actually hung up in the store and wasn't normally for sale but since the store was closing and since i was a regular customer he sold me it as well as a few other posters (mainly Metallica ones) for cheap.

I have the Alice in Chains boxed set and I never opened it for a decade. Something that irks me is there were two "best of" CDs within two years, the latter with less music than the first. Then a third double CD "best of" within 6 years. That's the record label for ya, make that money.

There are other boxed sets I have yet to open like a Tom Petty one long before his death I never opened. I'm weird where in the MP3 age I figured I'd open these things when I felt the need to. I'm happy I opened the Alice in Chains set as it's different from the actual CDs. Some stuff missing, some stuff added. Some of the old stuff sounds a big like Guns and Roses.

As for vinyl, I have nothing on vinyl as that's not really my thing. If anything I see vinyl cases or covers as art to hang on a wall. The Lateralus CD was cover slips removing layers of the body which like a medical exam which was cool.

Since Tool went digital again I've spent the past 3 or so weeks listening to mostly 10,000 Days with a few of the other CDs. I also have a bunch of Tool bootlegs from someone who claims to have basically followed Tool around for a concert tour in Europe during Lateralus. I can't say the CDs are all that different from one another so in a way it's not the most highly listened to stuff. It was $50 for a ton of shows. They were truly bootlegs, dirt cheap, ugly, ghetto, no labels, no covers, no cases, just a spindle.

$45 for something with a flat screen and USB charger seems cheap, but yeah it's just insane to include that. It's genius and insane at the same time. Probably just the first printing and the next printings will probably be more typical and cheaper. Something that hurts when trying to find physical copies of Fear Inoculum is the fact the single has the same name. I don't think there's any physical copies of the single, but the downloadable song keeps showing up from the single. Also, in a digital age where songs are $1 each, I wonder how that fares with a 90 minute CD for $10. Pretty cheap. I trust that's not a thought any band has when making an album.

Oh and so back to 7empest how it feels like the stand out song from a bland album. I read an interview where Maynard explained that guitar riff or song has been kicking around since the Aenima era. So wow the stand out song is a 20+ year reject.

On 8/30/2019 at 11:26 AM, Touchdown said:

The second is what geo mentioned above: the first five songs sound so alike, the overall vibe and tempo is very similiar. Nothing really exciting or surprising happens. Compare that to 10000 Days where the album starts out with the bang and then brings it down a bit with Wings. Then The Pot brings back the dynamics in a completely different way than Vicarious. Then it slows down again only to explode with Rosetta Stoned. The same thing happens on other Tool albums. But Fear Inoculum is very stale in that regard, it's just the same atmosphere and tempo for the first hour. Then FINALLY something changes with Chocolate Chip Trip and some energy comes back in 7empest but that's about it. Even 7empest is pretty tame all in all - it sounds like it could have been super heavy and epic but it isn't.

Just listened to the album and this is exactly my thoughts. Nothing really "happened." By no means does that mean it's bad, quite opposite. I love the songs and they are played well. But it just blended too well.

I also felt like there were less than about 50 words in the whole thing. There were hardly any vocals! When there were vocals, it felt repeated several times. Lateralus and 10,000 days had so many great vocal segments as well as instrumental.

Not their best work but not bad either. I think Lateralus will always hold that title.

I'm waiting for a non-limited version on CD. I watched an unboxing vid for the Limited Edition CD and it does look really cool. Love all the snazzy artwork that comes with it.

Ahh here is the video... didn't see it posted in here already so here it is.