Fear Inoculum by Tool

Fear Inoculum, Tool's fifth album, finally surfaced on August 30, 2019, 13 years after 10,000 Days, a silence the band filled with creative stalemates, personal upheaval and legal wrangling. They produced it themselves, and it sounds like it: long, patient, coiled pieces in which Danny Carey's drums do as much talking as Maynard James Keenan's voice, Adam Jones' guitar grinds and circles, and Justin Chancellor's bass keeps the whole thing in orbit.

Reviewers mostly heard a band sharpening what it already did rather than tearing it up, and fans who had waited well over a decade didn't mind: it topped the Billboard 200, Tool's third chart-topper in a row, and went to number one in five other countries in its first week. The title track was nominated for the Grammy for Best Rock Song, and "7empest" won Best Metal Performance.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.