Fear Inoculum

IT TOOK 13 YEARS TO MAKE!
IT'S ALL RELATED TO THE NUMBER SEVEN!
IT CURES CANCER AND REVERSES THE DAMAGE OF AIDS!
THIS ISN'T AN ALBUM, THIS IS A EVENT AND A EXPERIENCE!
THEY JERK OFF TO THE FIBANACHI SEQUENCE!!!!!!!!

But does it slap tho?

That was the only question I had for this record, does it slap? And going into this album, this question was growing more questionable. Tool has been a band that I never got into, despite the fact that literally everyone on the face of the earth has at one point said to me that Tool 'not only gives you an audial blowjob, but it also destroys your mind, body, and testicals whilst listening', and hearing that for about 3 years straight? Yeah, it made me fucking resent these prog bastards.

Not only (when I was forced into their world headfirst) were Tool not on any streaming service so I couldn't just enjoy the goddamn music legally, the singles I had heard, while I did enjoy them, was pretty decent prog-rock that I don't think should have warrented my 'freind' (i've only met two people who stan Tool who aren't also extremly racist, sexist, transphobic and abilist btw) literally forcing me to listen to Laturalus EVERY DAY FOR A YEAR, and I don't know if you know of the pharse 'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again', but by god do I feel like that was the case.
So to say that i'm not really looking forward to this project is an understatment. I just really wanted nothing to do with this album, let their die hard fans eat it up and leave, with no blood on my hands.

However, no matter how good or bad this album is, we all know that it's going to be one of the biggest, most intense and substancially popular rock event of the century. For a group this popular and for a album this hyped up to finally come out after 13 goddamn years? I had to at lest LOOK at the fucking thing! I had to! Plus, I would consider this a redemption round for Tool. This will be my first proper Tool record, no iffs, ands and or buts. This is the jumping on point for me.

So...the very big, broad and gargantuan question that i've spent four listens and countless hours during a vital exam week is...Will the most hype rock/metal record of the goddamn century slap harder or less hard then the entire century of music that has come before this album?

And (drum roll please)...the answer is...

Well you saw the score. It's good...but not great.

Now before the Toolheads come at my coming for my kneecaps, I should explain that I really like this album. I really do! The whole record is caked with this thick, distorted, mettalic sting of what i'm gonna now refer as 'post-grunge' with steller production and mixing that really gets me excited for re-listens and for the rest of the record. It's initial build of intensity and fist-to-face blend of grunge, post-rock, ambient, metal and punk that is not only complicated, but accesable. The whole record is caked with excitment, such as the exciting heaviness of tracks like '7empest' and 'Invincible' or the calming and mind melting ambince and minimulisim of tracks like 'Culling Voices' or 'Pneuma', or hell, even the more electronic tinged identities of tracks like the first half of 'Chocolate Chip Trip' or 'Legion Inoculant'. This record has moments and songs that kick a crate load of ass, and it's moments like this that prove to me that Tool is a band unlike any other, and can truly do some great stuff. There are times where I said to myself 'yeah this was worth the hype', because aside from...certain moments, there really wasn't anything truly bad on this record!

So, Tool had a clear direction and vision for this album that they had, and they realesed the album that they clearly wanted to realese. But...is it gonna cure depression, save the world, kill the rich and normalize the stock market? No. Even though this album is great in PLACES, at the end of the day as a whole, while it's a decent prog-metal album with an emphisis on a tight as ass cheeks rythem section and very etherial songwriting, and it's extremely fun to hear these puminling and heavy riffs, this band has these sometimes great progressions that at best feel like mountains, at worst feel like molehills. With these progressions the band love to write, the song needs to have some sort of payoff that feels exciting, interesting, rewarding and not like it's just adding to more and more build-up, only for the track to just end.

If there is one word that I would use to describe this album, dare I say it might be 'overthought'. And thats the weird thing. Despite the fat that could have been at lest trimmed or made more interesting (that there is a lot of it that could be trimmed and WAS on the physical version), there is very little substance that I can really sink my teeth into. Yes, there is the usual odd time signatures and mythical near 'head up ass' lyricisim, but aside from that it's just prog-rock that...honestly, that seems like Tool by the numbers. It's engaging, but I know this band can do better, and with there being a lot of music on this thing (and I mean a LOT of music on this thing), I can't help feeling a tad bit disapointed. I listened to this record 4 times with no distractions and nothing but the music and my brain, and I can only say that this is a record filled with prog bangers with great dynamics but not a lot more or less. Hell, at lest it was memorable.

This album isn't bad. Not at fucking all. I can see this being some peoples AOTY! But most of it just feels like it's about to do something great, but just hangs about in the background, waiting to pounce but never end up going for the throat. It's like a neutured panther. And I get it: It's deffinetly an album that takes it's time and you'll need to have a lot of pacince with. But just because the album is long and grand, it doesn't automatically interesting. Swans pull this off with staggering sucsess. But Tool? Tool have too much here at times (hell, the fact that this album has 4 inturludes, all of which don't really make the album any better or worse says a LOT) and it doesn't really know what to do with it, so it just dumps it all in big, plodding 10 minute songs that just don't have that payoff a song like this should have! It's almost like a Lars Von Trier movie: it's slow, it's plodding, and it really tests your patience at moments, and at moments it's really fucking annoying, slow and head up it's own ass....

But goddamn it, it's still a worthwhile and extremely well made experience, and deffintly one that you'll have to really concentraite to get all of it's appeal. Hell, this could potencially go down as one of the most 'stoner'-esq albums in the groups discogoraphy and of the year...and that's saying something. Tool will have made a classic in the eyes of many, and maybe this rating and review goes off of the idea that Tool were supposed to wow me so that they could have redeemed themselves into the classic band I knew this group was.

Maybe it's just me? Maybe thats the problem. I wanted another Swans classic album, but I didn't get a To Be Kind or The Seer, I got more of a My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. Still good, mind you, just missing something.

I feel like i'm gonna get a lot of hate for giving Muse a 100 and this a 79. Oh well. You've come this far. Cum!

Favorite Jams: 7empest, Invicible, Culling Voices

Lest Favorite: Mockingbeat (what do you what me to say people? it's goDDAMN MONKEY NOISES!)