We've been talking about Tool's new album Fear Inoculum for years and years now, far before we even knew what it was called or when it would be done. We've heard two songs titled "Invincible" and "Descending" as live bootlegs, but never an actual studio recording. Now, for the first time since 2006, you can stream a brand new Tool song titled "Fear Inoculum."
Tool has created a deluxe, limited-edition CD version of Fear Inoculum. The collectible offering, which was conceived by and directed by bands guitarist Adam Jones. The CD edition features a 4” HD rechargeable screen with exclusive video footage, charging cable, 2 watt speaker, a 36-page booklet and a digital download card. Pre-order the album Fear Inoculum here, which is out August 30.
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The band recently spoke with Revolver about the album's concept. Vocalist Maynard James Keenan explains:
"I feel like this is [about] wisdom through age, through experience. Hopefully through aging you find wisdom in some of the things you've encountered. Learning from your mistakes, learning from your successes. So if anything is a broad stroke of this album, it would be embracing where we are right now, acknowledging where we've come from and some of the things we've grown through."
Adam Jones echoed the sentiment adding:
"Things like, 'I'm gonna wear socks with sandals. I don't give a fuck what people think, I'm just gonna be comfortable.' [laughs] So it's about the little things in life. It's making those choices and moving on and growing. There's a little bit of Frank Herbert's Dune in that, so I'm into it. I'm so excited for this new record. The songs are very long but they are like movements. It's like two or three songs in one, but they relate. They flow. So I don't know. We'll see how it goes. But I am ecstatic."
All the songs on the record are long, which Danny Carey says:
"They pretty much ended up that way. There were times when I thought, 'Ok, this is getting kind of ridiculous.' [Laughs] I was a bit worried about it because I kinda like the contrast of having short songs and long songs, but all of them ended up being really long. So I had to step back and go, 'If this is where we are as a band and this is where we're meeting, I just have to accept it.' I try to look at it as movements within an individual song and the overall piece is a symphony or something. As long as it's moving forward and progressing and keeping people's attention, I'm not too worried about the length."
Additionally, the October 2019 issue of Guitar World features a new interview with Adam Jones and Jones spills all the beans on Fear Inoculum. Jones confirms the new album is looooong, 80 minutes long to be specific. He says there are seven tracks in total, and there are no songs that follow the standard radio single format – one song has a four minute guitar solo.
He also spoke of the role the number seven played in the recording process of the album, saying:
“I took a picture pointing to the number seven while we were recording, and a lot of the riffs Justin and I brought in were in seven. You don’t really go ‘I’m going to write a riff in seven!’
“You just write a riff and you count it out and it turns out to be in seven. Without being too descriptive about the concept, the main thing is that the seven beat just kept coming up, and riffs in seven kept coming up. It was really weird!
“When we finished recording, I went to the guys and said ‘I think we should call the record Volume 7’ because a lot of the songs are in seven and there are seven tracks on the record.
“Then Maynard told me about a whole concept he had about the number seven. We were all like, ‘Oh My God! This is too weird!’ Then Alex Grey [Tool album artist] basically said the same thing and he has a concept that will reveal itself through video.
“So there are a lot of rhythms and polyrhythms where we explore 7/4 or 7/3, and there’s a riff we count in 21 — which we count as three rounds of seven. I wrote a four-minute lead over something counted in 21, which is crazy!”
