FEAR INOCULUM

Tool

Experimental/Post Metal

3.72 | 364 ratings

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jammun
Prog Reviewer

Well all, these days I come around here about as often as a new Tool album.

And we do have a new Tool album, Fear Incoculum. And upon listening you will immediately recognize it as such, which is to say this is a very good Tool album, as they all, to varying degrees, are. Perhaps it doesn't hit with same same punch as the first time I heard Aenima in the mid-90s, but I'm a bit older now, as is the band.

In some ways, it's a remarkable album, a sort of compendium of what a Tool album is. Don't expect any of the gut punches that were Prison Sex or Stinkfist, but you'll get the same riffage and atmospheric guitars (occasionally at the same time), the solid, probing bass, the drumming that is just this side of second to none. Maynard seems a bit more restrained, but he's been slowly headed that way since '96. These are all long songs, running into double digits, minute-wise, almost meditative, slowly unfolding and then wrapping around themselves and back again, like some new age yogic ouroboros shedding its skin, with mostly satisfying results. It seems I fall into the tracks, and the cracks within them, get lost a bit, and then come back home. That seems a reasonable thing to expect from good music.

I'm not going to touch upon each of the tracks, because these songs seem specifically designed to take each person on his or her own journey to the self.

So who's it for? Anyone who enjoys Tool's music will enjoy this one. It might make a good introduction to the band for the uninitiated since it covers most bases. For everyone else, I'd hope it's a excellent listen. You'll be disappointed if, when it was announced that Tool had come to see you after thirteen years and you'd answered the door, you had for some unknown reason expected someone different to arrive.

jammun | 4/5 | 2019-8-30

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