Album Review: Tool’s Fear Inoculum

OK, so I was wrong. They weren’t putting us on; it finally happened. It seemingly took forever, and they certainly dragged it out about as long as they possibly could, but Tool finally released another album.  After 13 years, it’s no surprise that the arrival of Fear Inoculum has made a gigantic impact on the music world, especially among rock fans (though fewer and fewer they may be), and in spite of the ridiculous wait, the praise and enthusiasm from the band’s fan base is well deserved. This album, technically only Tool’s 5^th after nearly 30 years together, is an epically gigantic, heavy weight mass of music and sounds that expands on the group’s previous album, 2006’s 10,000 Days, just as that LP was an evolution of 2001’s Lateralus.  While it may not have been as obvious before now, it becomes clear within even the first few tracks on the new record that there are major themes connecting each and every release in the band’s catalog, whether they be musically, lyrically, or within the albums’ artwork.  Even for a dedicated, long-time fan, Fear Inoculum is a lot to take in.  For the uninitiated, this album is not the place to start. Tool’s new album will take time and repeat listens to be fully broken down, properly digested, and possibly even understood, but it immediately fits in next to all their previous releases.

Before even getting to the music on the album, proper, it’s important to start with the mega-deluxe, over-the-top packaging for the (apparently limited?) physical CD release. Keeping up a tradition of creatively unique artwork and packaging that itself has continued to evolve with each new release over the years, Fear Inoculum comes in a large, gate fold box, housing the CD in a colorful inner sleeve and an over-sized 36-page booklet (with lyrics!  A first for Tool). In between these items is an LED video screen that immediately begins playing a looped computer animation sequence when the listener opens the box to access the music. Then, sounds begin to emit from a speaker installed below the video screen, and without explanation, you are immersed in “Recusant Ad Infinitum”, a 6-minute instrumental blend of tones and atmosphere that serves as a prelude to the album and which does not appear on either the CD itself or the expanded digital version of the album. Which is another thing to note: this album is crazy long, man!! All told, even with only 11 tracks, it still takes over 90 minutes to play the record from start to finish, Tool’s longest ever. It’s so long, in fact, that it doesn’t even fit onto the CD that comes with the expensive, experimental box set. Unfortunately, CDs can only hold up to 80 minutes of music or other content, so the album’s 87-minute digital edition is shortened by three tracks on the physical version (rather than being released as a double CD set, to the chagrin of some fans). There’s been no word just yet on how a forthcoming vinyl edition will be sequenced. While the pieces that were dropped are all instrumental bridge tracks, or musical interstitials, similar to pieces from their previous few albums, removing them from the order of music on the album does change the experience of hearing it at least a little bit.  Thankfully, the CD box also contains a download code for the digital version, but even with this, listeners essentially need to stitch the album together themselves by combining songs from three different sources in order to hear the complete LP, in its highest quality form (though all three sources are included in the CD package).

Having said that, this album breaks down to be 11 songs in about 90 minutes.  6 of the songs are fully formed, multi-section, dynamic, rock pieces with lyrics and structured changes in the style of most of Tool’s other songs but stretched to a much greater length and depth, the shortest of which is still over 10 minutes long. The remaining 5 songs are instrumental pieces of varying density that allow for a break between different sections of the album, though two of them act more as a prologue and epilogue to everything else. Only one of the instrumentals, “Chocolate Chip Trip”, contains enough substance and engagement to be included on the CD edition of the album, and that piece is mainly a blazing drum solo played against synthesizer loops. Without the instrumentals, the album’s length drops by nearly 20 minutes, but a concentrated presentation of the 6 main songs without breaks to help with pacing can feel overwhelming in a different way.

Finally, the 6 main songs themselves. These tracks, Tool’s densest, longest, and most complicated ever, are impressive in almost every sense.  The production and sound remain virtually identical to 13 years ago (or maybe even 18), and every note of each song sounds exactly like Tool sounds. That shouldn’t be specifically noteworthy, and there have been no changes in band membership, but after so many years away, some might expect the band to sound different or to be unable to deliver on the same level as they have in the past. With the exception, some may argue, of the vocal performances  in certain sections, this is not at all the case. Bassist, Justin Chancellor, thoroughly rocks the low end with expert dexterity and precision as his fluid style and signature effects hold the sections of each song together. Guitarist, Adam Jones, continues to impress as he reaches for greater heights on the leads and solos that accent each track. Jones stands out the most on “7empest”, the last “full” song on the album and the longest song on an album made up of only long songs, clocking in at just under 16 minutes. It’s also the album’s best song and its climax, comparable to “Aenima” and “Lateralus” before it. Drummer, Danny Carey, seems to have been involved with the album the most. In addition to his always flawless drum performances throughout, Carey again contributes most of the synthesizer writing and programming, similar to the band’s previous LP, but even more so on this release. The instrumental tracks mostly consist of pieces he developed during a portion of the writing process when the record was envisioned to be one long song, which though not unheard of (see Fantomas, NOFX and others), might have been a bit too much for the average listener to handle. Carey’s synth work is also featured during instrumental sections of the longer “complete” songs and adds a mystical texture that complements the psychedelic prog/metal that weaves in and out of each of them.

Singer/lyricist, Maynard James Keenan, has always been and continues to be a pretty odd dude, an unpredictable and true original, whose work with Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer, in addition to his famous vineyard, winery, restaurant locations, has gained him a strong and dedicated following. Having touched on a wide range of topics, both personal, metaphorical, or observational at different times, but with a unique, poetic style and cadence, Tool fans understandably have high expectations for the vocal performances and lyrics in this new material. Whether or not due to age or slightly diminished vocal ability, many of the songs on Fear Inoculum feature vocals that are quiet, a bit reserved, or delivered in a lower register more consistently than on the band’s other releases. Passages with vocals are often quieter musically to allow them to stand out a bit better, and many of the louder sections of the songs either have no vocals at all or return to a repeated phrase for a short time, more as an accent to the music than a central focus. While this style, in general, is not new to Tool, the lack of balance with higher register, louder, or angrier vocal sections makes these songs vary just slightly compared to others in the Tool catalog. The most notable exception is “7empest” at the end of the album, during which Keenan finally lets loose with the fire and fury of many of the band’s classic songs, and which ends up standing out even more since it only really happens on that song.

Lyrically, musically, and even visually, there are connections to themes from those previous releases as well. Aside from Tool’s ongoing collaboration with artist Alex Grey, guitarist Adam Jones continues to take the lead on most aspects of the artwork and visual presentation, with symbolism such as the singular or multiple eyes, use of sacred geometry, and a blend of both dark and bright spiral imagery continuing to be a part of Fear Inoculum as well. Even on the first listen, those already familiar with Tool’s other work will hear what seem to be sections of or references to previously released songs, sometimes seemingly cut and pasted bits of other albums that have been reconstructed or re-purposed into new songs. The instrumental break in “Fear Inoculum” has a drum section that sounds almost identical to “Reflection” from 2001’s Lateralus. The opening moments of “Pneuma” sound like “Right in Two” from 10,000 Days at first and then morph into an alternate version of Chancellor’s famous fuzz bass solo from “Schism” before emerging as something entirely new as Keenan contemplates a possible afterlife and the idea that humans are their spirit rather than their body. He previously explored the idea of another step in human evolution on 1996’s “Forty-Six & 2”, and while Devo (one of Keenan’s favorite bands) often focused on a disappointingly progressive lack of faith in humanity, Tool continues to present a blend of both hope and despair, often leaning toward the possible positives or at least an equal evaluation of both the positive and the negative. Most of the other lyrics from the album’s first half, including the title track and the sprawling and dynamic, “Invincible”, seem to focus on both mustering courage against an individual's own self-doubt or apprehensions, in one case and against irrelevance and aging itself in the other. The lyrics on the album’s second half seem to focus on acknowledging a coming catastrophe (such as climate change or self-created human extinction, for example) and, as on “Descending”, the importance of a focused banding together of people to overcome it and survive. “Culling Voices” seems to focus on the idea that choosing or even forcing oneself to be social and to interact with the people and nature around them rather than on social media or not at all is also part of the bigger plan to survive and thrive. However, “7empest” follows all of this with a reality check, in that nature cannot be tamed or controlled by humanity (regardless of what any politician might tell you), and eventually, it will right things, probably without human assistance (or existence). Whether this is more of a frightening warning or a dark prediction is up to the listener, but the optimism of one side of the issue is more than balanced out by the pessimism of the epic, closing song (followed, on the digital version, by a few minutes of manipulated bird calls, possibly indicating some sort of mutated, post-apocalyptic future).

Despite the darkness within some songs and lyrics, in some ways, Tool might even be a sort of inverse of Devo in that rather than focusing on the decline of humans, they champion and encourage the exact opposite, even if subliminally. Tool’s music and lyrics have continued to build on each new release, and with that progress comes change and challenges to all involved, including the audience. Many of Tool’s songs blended in with those of their peers at first, but as they have continued to write and record, the predictability and comfort of standard rock structures, popular production techniques and any sort of remotely fashionable look, sound, or presentation have gone completely by the wayside. Fear Inoculum shows more clearly than any of the band’s other albums that Tool’s music itself has been a metaphor for evolution possibly since the band’s conception. Each release becomes more complex and stretches further than the one before it. The band members have grown as the music itself has grown, and the audience has grown right along-side as well.

This record is Tool’s most challenging album.  It is a challenge to rock radio because of the length of the songs. It is a challenge, not just to the casual listener, but even to the devoted fan.  It asks a lot of its audience. It requires focused attention and repeat listens to even begin to put the pieces together and to discover the connections that more than a decade of work can create.

The groundbreaking nature of the release of Fear Inoculum, including years of teases and misinformation from the band, the nearly-simultaneous release of their back catalog on all digital services, the differences between versions of the album, and debuting at #1 on the Billboard Album Chart (even over Taylor Swift!) make it special and significant even beyond the music itself. The release of the title track as a single resulted in it becoming the longest song to ever appear on the Billboard 100 Singles (Pop) Chart. All this excitement has kept them in the ongoing pop culture discussion for the last few months, somewhat surprisingly. Unlike Chinese Democracy, the long-delayed album Guns ‘N Roses fans had to wait 17 years to hear and almost immediately panned, Tool’s new record is a much closer continuation of what they had already done that is both satisfying and very rewarding in most respects. There is a sense that this is just the beginning of a new era for the band who could easily coast as long as they’d like from here on out without ever needing to release anything more, though it would be totally in their humor to put another album out next year. Wouldn’t THAT be something?

Overall, Fear Inoculum is an amazing, heavy, complex, and very impressive album that perfectly sits atop the music tower Tool has built over the past 30 years, representing and clearly showing the progressive growth of the band and its music.