Thirteen years – yes, that is exactly how any review of this album should start, straying from being how unique this artistic collective is. But then again, some things are universal.
Tool is transcending music’s great anomaly. Bathing in rhythmic complexities, wrapped by decibels of decaying doom and notes of harshly twisted absurdity, this band, like no other, is ferocious and precise.
Let me be blunt. Most people expected Lateralus version two, or 20,000 days. Sorry.
Fear Inoculum is the same, yet different.
Tool’s elite unit of snipers display intense blunt force yet again with the release of their fifth studio album, 13 years after the release of their last one, 10,000 days.
Fear Inoculum is split between prayerful songs that top the 10-minute mark, and cuts as short as two minutes.
The first and title track, right from the start, exhibits a substantial resemblance to Reflection from Lateralus, with its tom-dominated drum pattern, elliptical bassline and patient build-up.
Pneuma has a similarly foreign and crepuscular melody, coupled with strummed or slashed guitars and heart thumping rhythms.
The nearly 13-minute long "Invincible" has Justin Chancellor pulling a thumbed bass flip with the entire tracking moving towards a chugging rhythm and a fuzzing guitar solo, that might make one reminisce about Jambi.
Chocolate Chip Trip– two things...aliens…and Danny Carey. Well, they might be the same.
The track that will likely catch the attention of most listeners, conventional or not, is the 15-minute 7empest, with its mix of stuttering rhythm guitars and flanged solos, hard-rolling drums and a sneaky, growly vocal from Maynard. Very Undertow and Ænima.
From what I understand, Maynard, adherent to his nature, takes a welcome jab at everything: “We know better…It’s not unlike you…We know your nature.”
Not attempting to rush to the studio to carry on, on account of commercial glory, has been a good decision on the mathematically gifted quartet’s part.
This is a different, more mature Tool. Then again the same. There is no shorter, hookier tracks like Schism or Stinkfist. In contrast, there are lengthy, brooding epics. Adam Jones’s riffs are still cosmic calculus; Carey is still as hypnotic as a glacier; Chancellor’s four strings still cause ethereal ripples; and Maynard…heh…as shockingly smooth as ever.
Out of nostalgia? I think not. Tool is present, unflinching, transcending, intimidating, ruling eternally.
