Retrogressions in Music: "Fear Inoculum" by Tool

So my two cents on the new Tool song that was released yesterday, "Fear Inoculum". I'm a big Tool fan. They are probably one of my favorite bands from the 90's/early 00's. It's been 13 years since they put out any new music. 13 years. The only other lapse between albums that long by a major band in recent memory is Guns N' Roses with "Chinese Democracy", which came out 15 years after their previous release, 1993's "The Spaghetti Incident". Granted, that album also only featured one original member of the band on it. My daughter wasn't even born yet when Tool's "10,000 Days" was released in April, 2006. I realize that in these 13 years they had a lot going on with lawsuits over album artwork, family commitments, and lead vocalist Maynard James Keenan deciding that he wanted to start a winery as well as maintain regular album releases/touring with his two other side projects, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. Put that aside though, and the three core members of the band that write all the music, guitarist Adam Jones, drummer Danny Carey, and bassist Justin Chancellor, had 13 years to come up with the most badass shit they could. And in my opinion they didn't.

Don't get me wrong, "Fear Inoculum" is not a horrible song, in fact it's probably better than 98% of any new music you hear on modern rock radio. But it's essentially Tool covering Tool. I don't hear any progression in songwriting from them in this song. They've already got several songs that start with weird sound effects that segue into tabla percussion that then turns into a tom fill rhythm for the bass to chug along to and the guitar to creep in slowly. Maynard's vocals don't sound bad, but he's using the same effects on his voice that he always does (namely reverse reverb). The build-up of this song is similar to many others of theirs and the ending with the staccato guitar/bass while the drums do a fast fill in-between is how they end a lot of their songs.

My point is, if you're a Tool fan, there's not really anything new to digest here and I think they've done these same tricks better on past albums. And maybe that's fine for most listeners, but as a musician, I expected a little more. I know that my guitar playing has progressed immensely in the past 13 years. I listen back to songs I wrote in the mid-2000's and they do not have anywhere the depth or maturity compared to what I write now. I'm not saying that they should have done a 180 and released a country record, but there are bands like Pearl Jam and Big Wreck who have been around for a similar amount of time as Tool, that have had lapses of time between output of new music, yet each new release builds and grows on what came before it. Those bands seem to age like a fine wine, where as Tool seems to be stuck in the same fermenting stage that they were in in 2006.

Granted, this is only one song; for all I know the rest of the album could be incredible. But if this is what they choose as the first release to be the initial representation of what we can expect the new record is going to sound like, I'm just not impressed. The new Big Wreck album, "But For The Sun" releases the same day (Aug. 30th) as Tool's new full length, and personally I'm far more looking forward to that release because based on what I've heard from songs like "Too Far Gone" and "Locomotive", it's still sounds like Big Wreck, but is a leap forward in progression from their previous album.