REVIEW
What: Tool, Fear Inoculum (Volcano/RCA)
Release date: Aug. 30
Rating: 4 stars (out of five)
Waiting nearly a decade and a half — 4,750 days, to be exact — for a band’s new record would send even the most devout supporter scurrying for alternatives. Tool fans would have had no shortage of other metal acts to explore during the 13-year wait between albums.
But that was never going to be the case for diehards of the Los Angeles prog-metal band, who have obsessed over every Google alert since 2006 in their desire for a follow-up to Tool’s last studio recording, 10,000 Days.
Details about a possible new album came in fits and starts, with one postponement following another. The group’s fanbase never wavered.
And now, the wait is over.
So what finally brought the saga of Fear Inoculum to a close? The prog-metal kings have returned with an album of such dizzying intensity and sonic sophistication, you could argue it took 13 years to make something this epic.
Or, maybe the quartet of drummer Danny Carey, guitarist Adam Jones, singer Maynard James Keenan and bassist Justin Chancellor simply took its own sweet time, emboldened by the fact that its millions of fans would support the record no matter when it arrived.
Tool set up the Fear Inoculum release with finesse, unveiling its catalogue to digital retailers and streaming services for the first time on Aug. 2. Aided by pent-up excitement over the Aug. 30 release, Tool’s entire discography hit the charts hard, breaking several records in the process.
At one point, Tool songs made up the entire Top 10 on the digital rock charts, the first time in history one act has occupied the top tier.
The end result of all the hard-rock hysteria is symphonic, spectacular and special. Keenan’s lyrics on Fear Inoculum are invigorating and inspirational, with political epithets coming at almost every turn. “Pray we mitigate the ruin, calling all to arms and order,” Keenan sings on Descending, with Jones’s chainsaw-like guitar buzzing beneath. “Drifting through this boundlessness, this madness of our own making.”
The band didn’t skimp on the running time, either. Six songs crack the 10-minute mark, with 7empest reaching the near-exhaustive length of 15:43. Verbosity is nothing new for Tool, but the 86-minute album can be a marathon for those who have not kept pace with the band’s increasing fondness for explorative musical journeys.
Inevitably, some will say the record wasn’t worth the wait, that it sounds like a bookend to 10,000 Days, while abandoning the straight-ahead styles of Undertow (from 1993) and Ænima (1996).
That assessment — that Tool is now indebted to itself and itself only — will be a familiar refrain going forward. Fear Inoculum is hardly perfect, but that isn’t because of the band’s self-satisfaction. It has more to do with listeners, who have grown older — and less patient — after a 13-year wait.
Still, many highlights remain. The full payoff of Penuma doesn’t come until more than nine minutes in, but when it does, the weighty guitar work gives headbangers a chance to snap their necks. Stop-start dramatics were the backbone of the Grammy Award-winning Ænima, but follow-up recordings have taken longer to hit top speed.
Radio hits aren’t what Tool aims to deliver at this point in their career, but when they find their own ways to rock, the payoff is huge on Fear Inoculum.
Culling Voices will satiate the needs of any air-guitar hobbyist, while Invincible flies by in a flurry of percussion, power chords and proselytizing. “Age old battle, mine/Weapon out and belly in,” Keenan sings on the latter song, hitting the lower register with his growl. “Tales told of battles won, of things we’ve done/Caligula would grin.”
A fallen Roman emperor wouldn’t be alone in his assessment. Millions of fans who will assuredly send Fear Inoculum to the top of the charts will be overjoyed that Tool has returned as conquering heroes.
Track listing
1. Fear Inoculum (10:20)
2. Pneuma (11:53)
3. Litanie contre la Peur (2:14)
4. Invincible (12:44)
5. Legion Inoculant (3:10)
6. Descending (13:37)
7. Culling Voices (10:05)
8. Chocolate Chip Trip (4:48)
9. 7empest 15:43
10. Mockingbeat (2:08)
