In Tool’s case, a number of publications (this one included) reported on a sexual assault accusation made on Twitter last year involving Keenan. And the dude energy they tend to valorize is suspect in the #metoo era, and not without reason. Hard rock and heavy metal have become artisanal practices, folk art with arcane rituals like guitar solos and flamboyant kit-drum displays. What do they mean culturally in 2019? That’s tougher to say. Still, they were, and clearly remain, a pop-scale force. The band never appeared to care much about the mainstream music world, generally sneering at it when they bothered to engage it at all. That may sound surprising, but Tool’s success has always been aberrant, even in the ‘90s heyday of nü metal they came up in, their proggy musical constructions, visual panache, and bookish, psychedelic-philosophic steez launching them into charting singles and arena bookings in surprisingly short order. But what does a Tool record mean in 2019? Economically, it seems, plenty: Forbes predicted Fear Inoculum would knock Taylor Swift’s Lover off the top of the pop charts in its first week. So yeah: Fear Inoculum is a very good Tool record. “Rouse all from our apathy, lest we cease to be,” Keenan keens, suggesting a coming apocalypse and the rallying of energies to prevent it - until another crushing, multi-part, technically-dazzling, synth-laced instrumental passage flares up and rages, until the waves come crashing in again and reclaim the space. It begins with the sound of storms wailing and waves crashing - oceans perhaps rising - with vocals that sound delivered underwater (all this reflects guest contributions from dark-new-age ambient veteran Lustmord). The set’s second half is no less impressive, and “Descending” might be the album’s highlight.
There’s a magnificently sick guitar solo, and the drumming’s just ridiculous, verging on super-human, all spiraling polyrhythms and rapidfire blast-beats. Echoes of previous songs bubble up: a distended synth line like the one in “Pneuma,” but thicker distressed vocals like those in “Litanie Contre la Peur,” but more intelligible, with Keenan lamenting time’s mercilessness. There’s a weave of mbira and downtuned guitar tones. With lyrics alluding to Ponce De Leon’s mythical search for a fountain of youth, the title of “Invincible” implies air quotes. 'Silence of the Lambs': 'It Broke All the Rules' The brief “Litanie Contre la Peur” (apparently taking its name from an incantation out of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi novel Dune) suggests an exercise in extreme voice processing, 808s & Heartbreak run through a screw extruder. “Pneuma” has a pulse that suggests the measured rhythm of yogic breathing: a snaking, vaguely Arabic synth tone appears, then slithers off heavy metal crescendos and feedback-glazed diminuendos rise and fall like abstracted Led Zeppelin.
That’s “Fear Inoculum,” the first of six extended songs, all over 10 minutes long, punctuated by four interludes, on a record that clocks in at one hour, 27 minutes.
As Adam Jones’ phase-shifted guitar tones alternately suggest Turkish funk and Norwegian metal, the track unspools, building to a bonecrushing, double bass kick-drum-powered finish. Maynard James Keenan, his voice still striking youthful - he turned 55 last spring - sings in prayer-like tones about contagion, venom, and immunity about mania, spectacle, and exorcism. Tool’s first album in 13 years opens like a grievous European symphony drawn in electronic tones what sounds like the chiming of a hammered dulcimer enters alongside Danny Carey’s tablas, which tag-team with kit drums, heavy electric guitar and bass.
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