Fear Inoculum by Tool

There’s nothing like the unexpected. I didn’t expect to be hearing a new Tool album in 2019, and I bet most if not all of you who’ve been following the Top 31 didn’t expect to see Tool on the Top 31, especially this high up in the ranking. And yet.

Fear Inoculum, the fifth record from these prog-rock metal masters, came out at the end of August, to my absolute surprise and delight. Tool released their first album, the nearly triple-platinum selling Undertow way back in 1993 (my freshman year of college). That’s 27 years ago. They followed that up with my favorite Tool album, Ænima, in 1996. Then Lateralus in 2001, and finally 10,000 Days in 2006. I say “finally” for the 2006 album, because nothing came after it for so long.

According to Wikipedia), the band never officially broke up after that 2006 album, but it sure felt like it to me. Their music wasn’t on streaming media, so the only way you could acquire it in the interim was through physical media or illegal download (or potentially “illegal,” or at least “unofficial,” vinyl purchases, which I did by mistake, twice). 13 years, four multi-platinum albums. Then nothing until August 1, 2019, when the band suddenly released their entire catalog on streaming sites (and consequently set a bunch of online download records), along with a new single. Called “Fear Inoculum,” the new single was 10+ minutes long, and consequently set a record itself for longest song ever to appear on the Billboard Top 100. All of a sudden we were swimming in Tool again, seemingly out of nowhere.

The full Fear Inoculum album came out at the end of that month, on August 29, 2019, a full 13 years and 110 days since their previous release. Just to drive the point home, that’s 13 years to make four albums, then another 13 years to make the fifth. And oh was it worth the wait.

Fear Inoculum, in its full digital form, is 86 minutes and 38 seconds of pure, heavy prog-rock bliss (if you buy the physical form of the album, you’re limited to the limitations of the form, consequently get a shorter album, at 79 minutes and 10 seconds, and find that three instrumental interludes have been removed). The album is 100% predictable Tool: it’s loud, guitar and drum heavy, set in a myriad of difficult-to-headbang time signatures, and all capped off by lead singer Maynard James Keenan’s maniacal ramblings. And it’s glorious.

Tool is definitely not for everyone. But if the multi-platinum sales didn’t tell you, I will: the band’s music is definitely for a lot more people than you might otherwise think. They live outside of the smaller confines of any one genre because they cross over so many. The Grammys keep filing them as “metal” (they’ve won four Grammys, most recently for “Best Metal Performance” for the 15+ minute song “7empest” from Inoculum). But “art rock,” “progressive rock,” and “alternative” genres all come with their own fan bases, and they all include Tool squarely in the middle of their boundaries.

While Keenan stands as the crazy, wine-making, child-brained front man of the band, it‘s the drums of Danny Carey and guitars of Adam Jones that really carries the band to greatness. Along with bassist Justin Chancellor, the three of them create the meandering, multi-dimensional music that is “Tool” all the way to the finish line before finally involving Keenan (who is known to be a complete diva) to write lyrics and sing on top. For 26 years now, the band has honed a sound that is unlike anything else out there, and it is perfect.

If you missed the original Tool train, and are only just now discovering them for the first time, then Fear Inoculum is a perfectly fine place to dive in. But if you’re a longtime fan, like me, then Inoculum is going to be so much more. Tool has managed to climb back to the top of the pack, and I can only hope they’re here to stay for another 13 years into the future. Maybe by then they’ll have created a proper video for this album (sorry for the stupid audio-only video above).

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4. Two Hands + U.F.O.F. by Big Thief
5. Remind Me Tomorrow by Sharon Van Etten
6. I Am Easy to Find by The National
7. 5 + 7 by Sault
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12. When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? by Billie Eilish
13. Cheap Queen by King Princess
14. Anima by Thom Yorke
15. Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Parts 1 + 2 by Foals
16. Gallipoli by Beirut
17. My Finest Work Yet by Andrew Bird
18. Four of Arrows by Great Grandpa
19. Designer by Aldous Harding
20. Norman Fucking Rockwell! by Lana Del Rey
21. Our Pathetic Age by DJ Shadow
22. Juice B Crypts by Battles
23. Pony by Orville Peck
24. Hyperspace by Beck
25. Eraserland by Strand of Oaks
26. Dogrel by Fontaines DC
27. You’re the Man by Marvin Gaye
28. Big Wows by Stealing Sheep
29. 1000 gecs by 100 gecs
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31. Radiant Dawn by Operators

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