Fear Inoculum

As with releases previous, there are wrinkles that will only emerge after the record is lived with and absorbed. But if you’re wondering whether ‘Fear Inoculum’ was worth the wait, then the answer is yes. If you’re wondering whether it’ll touch your heart, soul and spirt, the answer is also so.

Fear Inoculum lives up to its daunting expectations with songs that showcase Tool in peak performance as musicians and compositional arrangers. For the diehard fan, there’s a lot to consume here. Likewise, the album offers little respite for the uninitiated; its accessibility comes in the form of its vastness and eerie psychedelia, not through hooks or common pop structures. This is deep prog-rock as only Tool can create it.

Tool managed to improve and perfect their sound even further, resulting in one of the strongest statements in their catalog. Whether 10,000 days or the actual 4,868, Fear Inoculum was well worth the wait.

Keenan was accurate to say that Fear would require patience to ingest, being a massive, compelling piece of music that unfolds beautifully and balances Tool’s unique style with plenty of rewarding new elements. Any fears that they would not live up to their past can be abated; Fear Inoculum is truly groundbreaking and one of the best albums of the decade.

While 13 years is a long time to wait, the gap melts away between the sounds of this 86-minute masterpiece. Difficult though it might be to fully process, it eases right into the Tool oeuvre and cements its place among their small but towering pantheon of prog-metal art.

It’s a magnificent experience. ... If you’re not a fan, or never heard of them before this is the perfect album to start introduce yourself to them. ... Because: trust me on this, it will hold your attention.

They continue to blur the lines between art, psychedelia, alt metal, and prog rock with undiminished curiosity and skill. ... As with previous work, on Fear Inoculum, the band’s songwriting can at times seem like a riddle, daring listeners to lean in and figure out exactly what is going on.

Neither that track nor this album — all 85 minutes of it — is as catchy, rangy or amorphously composed yet tight as Tool’s raging smashes of the ’90s, such as “46 & 2” or “Sober.” [The group’s most ardent fans] wouldn’t stick around for “Fear Inoculum’s” nearly hour-and-a-half stretch, let alone have endured a 13-year wait for new music, if they weren’t expectant of having fresh changes and new dramas added to the vintage wine of the quartet’s heady mathematical intelligence.

Granted, it’s a bit of a slog: six of Fear Inoculum‘s 10 tracks spiral past the 10-minute mark. However, these tunes don’t resemble multi-part, Yes-style “prog epics” as much as rock songs stretched into the longform vistas of post-rock, psychedelia, experimental music, minimalism, and jazz.

Fear Inoculum is a legacy album that shows the band are not some rock relic but undisputed masters of metallic churn. And if the end of the world is nigh, at least now we have its soundtrack.

An 80-minute prog-metal fever dream that proves the band is back and better than ever.

Fear Inoculum is an intricate record that calls for you to reserve judgement until you’ve been fully immersed. It might be long (running to 86 minutes) but it’s a worthy investment of your time. [Sep 2019, p.82]

Before you know it, 87 minutes have gone by and you’re not quite sure what to make of it all, but you’re ready to listen again. For that, Tool are to be commended. If nothing else, the band have given us an album that could very well keep us occupied until its next one arrives sometime around the year 2032.

Musically, Tool have taken the best of Lateralus's dynamism and the heaviness of 10,000 Days to explore the middle ground with great length on Fear Inoculum. Those who stuck it out through the decade-plus wait won't mind hanging around a little longer until the album's close.

Fear Inoculum is a very good Tool record.

Flaws aside, Fear Inoculum is a fun album and an almost completely triumphant return for Tool. It manages to meet nearly every expectation admirers could have and rank as a worthwhile—if slightly subpar—extension of the band's legacy.

Fear Inoculum already feels like an event—It's the kind of grand statement that will equally delight and confound, where Tool allows themselves to highlight their technical prowess with uncompromising integrity. Though the lengthy tracks convey great character and complexity, it's best to experience its ambient soundscapes and strapping guitars with a full, uninterrupted listen.

The album plays like an extended mood piece that bends and drifts, with a shortage of the crushing hard-rock crescendos and riffs that defined the band’s work on “Lateralus” (2001) and before.

Sadly, there’s nothing on Fear Inoculum as immediately accessible or anthemic as past Tool glories like “Sober” or “The Pot,” but what is here will reward repeated spins, even if listeners initially find themselves waiting for those mammoth riffs to show up, a la “7empest,” or for Maynard to finally kick into high gear, as in the rousing refrain of “Descending.”

The majority of Fear Inoculum’s songs are more or less interchangeable, achieving the same overall effect in slightly different ways. ... Toolheads will find much to enjoy here, I am sure of it.

It's an impressive feat of engineering, but one that anyone other than ardent fans will struggle to find a way into. [Oct 2019, p.114]