Tool - Fear Inoculum (2019)

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Tool - Fear Inoculum (2019)

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Fear Inoculum is the upcoming fifth studio album by American rock band Tool. It is the band's first album in thirteen years, due to creative, personal, and legal issues band members encountered since 2006's 10,000 Days. The album is scheduled for release on August 30, 2019.

The album consists of seven main tracks of music, and a run time just short of 80 minutes, the maximum runtime of CDs. The digital version of the album contains three short interlude tracks, stemming from Carey’s scrapped plan to have the album be entirely one long song. Jones and Carey described the songs as lengthy, but containing multiple movements within each track. The concept of seven is a recurring theme of the album both musically and conceptually; Chancellor and Jones wrote guitar riffs in unusual time signatures related to the number seven, while Keenan introduced ideas related to seven as well. Future music videos will also cover the theme. The album also explores the concept of growing "older and wiser". Keenan explained that the album covers the idea of "embracing where we are right now, acknowledging where we've come from and some of the things we've gone through." Keenan also advised that patience and multiple listens were required in understanding the album, comparing it to a slowly developing movie. Jones described it as very different from their prior album (10,000 Days).

James McMahon of NME gave Fear Inoculum a perfect score, singling out Keenan’s work as “perhaps the best collection of vocals that singer Keenan has ever committed to tape, with many lines exiting the vocalist’s lips closer to the honey daubed croon of Keenan’s…A Perfect Circle than the coarse rasp of yore” and concluding that the album was "worth the wait".