More about: Tool

After a 13 year wait for new music (4,849 days to be precise) Tool have today shared new music. ‘Fear Inoculum’, the title track from their forthcoming album, is streaming on Gigwise below.

Tuning into a track that’s taken this long to arrive comes with a heavy dose of butterflies.

But it doesn’t disappoint. Clocking in at over ten minutes, it’s a symphonic sound with a fairly gentle intro and fantastic use of panning to create a sound that comes at you from myriad directions. That satisfying, classic Tool riff tone soon comes in, Maynard James Keenan's vocals follow shortly after.

Imagery in the lyrcis face the song theme head on with inoculation, fear and contagion spoken about. The words could correlate to the singer's thoughts on fear used as a weapon of mass control. In an interview with Gigwise last year, Maynard James Keenan spoke about " fear inserted into the airwaves," dampening people's ability to galvanise a movement for positive political change. "You lose sight of where you’re going," he said.

The track release follows the confirmation of the release date; and the Monday release of the LP cover art.

Despite us seeing a digital image of it, we’ll have to wait to see what its unique feature is. Tool LP covers usually laden in some mysterious meaning. For instance, their last record 10,000 Days’ Grammy-winning packaging featured the stereoscopic eyeglasses to view Alex Grey's artwork in 3D.

It could be something to do with what guitarist Adam Jones told Guitar World: he said Alex Grey has crafted a concept for the number seven that will reveal itself through video – seven being a number which kept creeping up on them during recording without any pre-planned consensus. So it’s one common theme but likely one of many in the subtext.

Other information revealed in the guitarist's interview include there being seven tracks and that it’s 85 minutes long. We can’t wait to hear it in full.

Until then we can join the rest of the internet in listening to their back catalogue on streaming services. Notoriously stubborn towards streaming services, it wasn’t until this campaign got going that they buckled. 2 August to be precise. Going against the grain for all these years appears to have paid off in terms of getting their name out tere to future generations, they've saturated the charts since their back catalogue has been up for streaming. 

More about: Tool