Fear Inoculum

Tool surprise me yet again with their least offensive project to date, Fear Inoculum. While the title is a bit pretentious, this album's blend of doom metal and hard rock makes for a reasonably listenable listen. There are no short songs here, no radio rock filler, nothing but serious and genuine expressions of creativity, and I admire that.

The album notably features some very pleasant guitar solos, especially on Decending, a track that's otherwise rather limp, boring, and melodramatic. Another is heard on Tempest, a song which sounds the most like the Tool I'm used to hearing. While at times this album reminded me of Witchcraft's Nucleus album (which I hate) or even the very modern doom metal from Witchcraft's previous Legend album (which I don't love) most tracks revert back to the same old stale Tool formula I'm used to hearing before they get too interesting. The Numa Numa song on track 2 is laughably Tool, with the riff around the 8:40 mark sounding like the same basic Tool riff I've heard probably a dozen times from them.

While I appreciate the inclusion of an unused Yeezus instrumental on track 8, the line "calm as cookies and cream so it seems" from track 9 is so wack that no Kanye of any era would go near it. Tempest also serves as this album's obligatory Swamp Song pt 5, as Maynard grumbles like a goblin and tells somebody, somewhere, that he doesn't like them, and that they're stinky and they smell bad and he doesn't like them. This is par for the course.

The limited use of pretentious riffs, obnoxious spacy drums, saliva crackling, and the notable absence of Maynard's trademark whimpering, make this album largely distinct from torture.