For me, Tool are quite simply the greatest metal band ever. I’d list two of their previous albums amongst my all-time favourite records: the career high double whammy of 1996’s Ænima and its follow up, 2001’s Lateralus. But that’s going back quite a way now, and their last record – 10,000 Days – was a whopping 13 years ago.
The ups and downs of lawsuits, wranglings and perfectionism had delayed things so often that Tool’s long-rumoured fifth album became a sort of mythical creature for fans. Finally, though, in August, it arrived. I was nervous: my stratospheric expectations for ‘new Tool’ had – years ago – been replaced with the trepidation of getting a legacy-damaging shadow of former glories. Admittedly, I don’t like Fear Inoculum as much as either Ænima or Lateralus. But there was no reason to worry. It is comfortably my favourite album of 2019. Indeed, I think it’s currently my favourite album of the 2010s. Even if it is, for me, still only their third best record...
Fear Inoculum is certainly Tool’s most ambitious work, and – for anyone who knows their previous output – that’s obviously saying a lot. It’s composed of only seven main tracks, although the digital version (which I’ve been listening to) includes a number of additional interlude/segue tracks. The ‘main’ tracks alone clock in at just under 80 minutes, the maximum length of a CD (meaning that the interludes were cut from hardcopy releases). As such, each ‘main’ track is huge, taking you on 10+ minute journeys through numerous, unpredictable prog-metal landscapes. The album is absolutely littered with polyrhythms: there are more on the track ‘7empest’ alone than I think I’ve ever heard of being used outside of classical music (hello Brahms!). And within them there are some seriously weird time signatures (a Reddit thread I read on one song’s mash-up of 11/8 + 22/8 + 7/8 made my head spin).
The number seven is a prominent theme throughout Fear Inoculum. It’s Tool’s seventh overall release (albeit fifth full-length studio album); it has seven main tracks; many of the crazy time signatures are built around sevens; some of its refrains occur in batches of seven; there are seven seconds of birdcalls and no music at the end of the (digital version of the) album; and the standout track on it is called ‘7empest’. Why sevens? Who knows: but this strange numerical touchstone is another sign that this record isn’t, well, normal.
Fear Inoculum’s great strength is also its weakness. In experimenting so much and caring so little what anyone thinks about those experiments, Tool have now hit peak idiosyncrasy, and it doesn’t all work for me. The interlude tracks are patchy and mostly feel unnecessary; even within the ‘main’ songs, the constant exploration means that some of the paths taken lead nowhere, or at least to places that I personally didn’t want to go (‘Descending’, for example, is killer for about 9 of its 12 minutes, but minutes 8-11 don’t really do it for me). As such, this record isn’t perfect, but I get the sense that its brilliance would have been somewhat dimmed if the band had restrained themselves in any way. I truly adore about 85% of it, but even the remaining 15% is never anything short of intriguing. I have returned to Fear Inoculum so many times (100s? Spotify doesn’t have a playcount…) over the last four months, and with every listen I find something new.
Fun fact: on its release, Fear Inoculum knocked Taylor Swift’s Lover (which had only been out for a week) off the number one spot on the Billboard 200 in the US. In other words, a bunch of weird, stubbornly experimental metal dudes in their 50s, who’ve been away for well over a decade, topped the album chart above pop royalty with easily their most impenetrable release (measured against a back catalogue of what, for most people, would be uniformly impenetrable releases). Yay.
Significantly better than it had any right to be. Welcome back. New album in 2032?
The ups and downs of lawsuits, wranglings and perfectionism had delayed things so often that Tool’s long-rumoured fifth album became a sort of mythical creature for fans. Finally, though, in August, it arrived. I was nervous: my stratospheric expectations for ‘new Tool’ had – years ago – been replaced with the trepidation of getting a legacy-damaging shadow of former glories. Admittedly, I don’t like Fear Inoculum as much as either Ænima or Lateralus. But there was no reason to worry. It is comfortably my favourite album of 2019. Indeed, I think it’s currently my favourite album of the 2010s. Even if it is, for me, still only their third best record...
Fear Inoculum is certainly Tool’s most ambitious work, and – for anyone who knows their previous output – that’s obviously saying a lot. It’s composed of only seven main tracks, although the digital version (which I’ve been listening to) includes a number of additional interlude/segue tracks. The ‘main’ tracks alone clock in at just under 80 minutes, the maximum length of a CD (meaning that the interludes were cut from hardcopy releases). As such, each ‘main’ track is huge, taking you on 10+ minute journeys through numerous, unpredictable prog-metal landscapes. The album is absolutely littered with polyrhythms: there are more on the track ‘7empest’ alone than I think I’ve ever heard of being used outside of classical music (hello Brahms!). And within them there are some seriously weird time signatures (a Reddit thread I read on one song’s mash-up of 11/8 + 22/8 + 7/8 made my head spin).
The number seven is a prominent theme throughout Fear Inoculum. It’s Tool’s seventh overall release (albeit fifth full-length studio album); it has seven main tracks; many of the crazy time signatures are built around sevens; some of its refrains occur in batches of seven; there are seven seconds of birdcalls and no music at the end of the (digital version of the) album; and the standout track on it is called ‘7empest’. Why sevens? Who knows: but this strange numerical touchstone is another sign that this record isn’t, well, normal.
Fear Inoculum’s great strength is also its weakness. In experimenting so much and caring so little what anyone thinks about those experiments, Tool have now hit peak idiosyncrasy, and it doesn’t all work for me. The interlude tracks are patchy and mostly feel unnecessary; even within the ‘main’ songs, the constant exploration means that some of the paths taken lead nowhere, or at least to places that I personally didn’t want to go (‘Descending’, for example, is killer for about 9 of its 12 minutes, but minutes 8-11 don’t really do it for me). As such, this record isn’t perfect, but I get the sense that its brilliance would have been somewhat dimmed if the band had restrained themselves in any way. I truly adore about 85% of it, but even the remaining 15% is never anything short of intriguing. I have returned to Fear Inoculum so many times (100s? Spotify doesn’t have a playcount…) over the last four months, and with every listen I find something new.
Fun fact: on its release, Fear Inoculum knocked Taylor Swift’s Lover (which had only been out for a week) off the number one spot on the Billboard 200 in the US. In other words, a bunch of weird, stubbornly experimental metal dudes in their 50s, who’ve been away for well over a decade, topped the album chart above pop royalty with easily their most impenetrable release (measured against a back catalogue of what, for most people, would be uniformly impenetrable releases). Yay.
Significantly better than it had any right to be. Welcome back. New album in 2032?