“There comes a point in a person’s fandom where one just stops caring. You get older. You move on. You become someone different. Tool – the Los Angeles progressive metal band, but really, so much more than that – have never faced such a problem. It’s now been 13 years since the band released their seminal fourth album ‘10,000 Days’, named thus, it’s believed, after the amount of time singer Maynar”
“It says something about the power of Tool that, even after 13 years, four blokes who like weird time signatures and lyrics about purging, fear and flesh can nearly knock a pop star off the global top spot. At the start of August, the enigmatic prog-metallers finally made their entire back catalogue available on streaming services for the first time: every one of their albums went Top 10 on iTunes,”
“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.”
“The prog metal band’s fifth album is exactly what you’d expect from a project over a decade in the making: a more mature, sometimes exciting collection that feels both overworked and undercooked.”
“Tool's comeback album Fear Inoculum is insufficient not only by the immaculate standards of the band's past work, but by the standards of rock and metal music at large.”
