Tool - Fear Inoculum
TOOL FALLS FLAT ON ‘FEAR INOCULUM’
A few days ago, alternative progressive rock outfit Tool released their first album in 13-years, called Fear Inoculum.
Tool
At Rawckus, we don’t usually review super-big-name bands, like Tool, simply because they’re already getting tons of space on the mammoth music outlets, such as Pitchfork, Billboard, SPIN, etc. But since I’m a big Tool fan and have been for years, I wanted to voice my opinion of the album, which, as one would expect, received immediate glorification from most reviewers.
One site that resisted the compulsion to lionize Fear Inoculum was Popdust. One of Popdust’s more astute writers, Mackenzie Cummings-Grady, in his delightful article “Why Tool Is Out of Date: No One Cares About Enigmatic Musicians,” questioned the band’s relevance, making beau coup good points.
Even Anthony Fantano, “the internet’s hardest working” and most perceptive music reviewer propounded a few legitimate criticisms of Fear Inoculum, saying, “It just feels like Tool by the numbers.”
The focus of 'Fear Inoculum' is Jones’ guitar and Carey’s stellar drumming, which is nonpareil, powerful, and finessed, as always.
Essentially, Fear Inoculum is nothing more than the band rehashing every song they’ve ever recorded. For example, “7emptest” duplicates Aenima, but adds a series of extended monotonous leitmotifs replete with pedal-induced tonal changes, in an attempt to build sonic tension. It doesn’t work because the leitmotifs fail to assert any elasticity of connection, along with minimal affectation. In other words, they fall flat.
Maynard’s vocals come across a listless, disinterested, and passionless. This is one of the premiere voices in the last thirty years, and it sounds random and contradictory, as if he’s just along for the ride and is now just another member of the band rather than the focal point. The focus of Fear Inoculum is Jones’ guitar and Carey’s stellar drumming, which is nonpareil, powerful, and finessed, as always. He even gets his own quasi-drum-solo on “Chocolate Chip Trip,” which other than demonstrating Carey’s skill, makes you question the track’s inclusion on the album.
For all intents and purposes, the album is good, in the sense of ‘sounding like’ Tool, but not great. And those who rhapsodize at length about its raw intensity are victims of sentimentality. Fear Inoculum, at best, is mediocre, full of dry, contrived, lifeless themes, bravura guitar effects, and basically the regurgitation of the band’s previously recorded songs, only elongated.
Put simply, Fear Inoculum is pretentious and bombastic, serving only as self-aggrandizement for a band that has succumbed to parroting itself.
