[Listen] TOOL: “Fear Inoculum” NEW SINGLE! (Part 2)

What follows was initially intended to PRECEDE my final statements (being, as they are, “final”), but was moved later since it’s stupidly long-winded.

Now what exactly this IS is a heavily-edited and approximately 60% authentic transcript of my initial reactions to hearing Tool’s HIGHLY anticipated single, the title track off their HIGHLY anticipated upcoming album, “Fear Inoculum”.

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OK this is it, this is it. Thirteen years of studio-silence, and this is what we’ve been waiting for.

“Fear Inoculum”. “Inoculum”? Like the little speck of bacteria that you incubate overnight for larger cultures?

So like… a little speck of fear that thrives and festers to make a whole lot of fear?

That can’t be right.

A break to enlist the aid of the all-knowing G’o-ogle.

OK almost right. It’s a little dose of fear. Just an inoculum’s worth. For whatever purpose. Infection, immunity, shits and giggles.

Alright, now we know what we’re dealing with.

And… play.

[00.00]: Industrial… metallic noise ascending in pitch, OK. I don’t hate it. And some kinda thick undulating BROAAWWM that bounces between the same three notes. And both your ears. LOVE that.

And oh what’s that DO MINE EARS DECEIVE ME?

CAN THAT TRULY BE THE EXOTIC SOUNDS OF THE SOUTH ASIAN DRUM, THE TABLA, ACCOMPANYING NOTES OF VAGUELY EASTERN MODES PLUCKED ON THE VAGUELY ZITHERY-SOUNDING STRINGS OF AN INSTRUMENT OF VAGUELY ASIAN ORIGIN?

NOW WE HAVEN’T SEEN THAT VERY MUCH IN THE METAL GENRE NOPE NOT VERY MUCH AT ALL IN THE LAST SIXTY YEARS.

I’m not complaining though (because it did very much seem like I was complaining, didn’t it, what with the caps and such), it’s got some serious “Planet Caravan” vibes.

[01.20]: OK those vibes lasted all of twenty seconds we’ve moved on oh look ooh the guitar BROAAWM’s getting MEANER. I like this. And DRUMSSSS the real ones now by which I mean those of the western kind. Bringing the Polyrhythms^TM. Now it’s a TOOL song.

[01.41]: Whoops and there I’ve just tripped over the plodding bassline, playing all those jaggedy accent notes on the off-beats. How could I forget good old Justin? Edit: NOW it’s a Tool song.

[2.01]: Oh, hello Maynard. Aw the BROAWM only comes back when he’s not singing. It’s my favorite part so far.

NOT listening to the lyrics. Because FUCK that.

Tool Rule of Thumb:

Tool of Thumb: All any Tool song is ever trying to tell you is FUCK you or if not that then FUCK The Man and if not that then FUCK society and if not that then FUCK you all over again but now on like a psychological level, couched in a broader lament on the loathsome, irrational and undeniable sinfulness inherent in the human condition (or something), like real Christian shit – WHOA stop the presses TOOL IS A CHRISTIAN BAND.

[2.42]: Oooh the BROAWM’s found itself a little riff. A GOOD one. Goes well with the drums and bass. Damn it’s like these guys are kickass musicians or something. Man I hope they don’t tease me with this sweet sonic synergy for just these thirty seconds and abandon it for the rest of the song.

[3.14]: Oh wait no that’s their MO. Now Maynard’s whisper-yelling at me. I don’t like it. “Immunity”? No just. Gimme that wave of guitars again.

[3.34]: Oooh building BUILDING. We’re BUILDING NOW. On a MODIFIED RIFF yup the old one is shot dead and never coming back aaaaaaand the new one’s gone too. We’re doing this other marginally different one now and Maynard’s gonna do his warbling-with-reverb thing over it. Ooh aah energetic drum fills and heavy power-chords. Very metal so MET-AL.

[4.21]: Oop and we’ve gone quiet. Only got our “unconventional” drums going now. Not gonna lie the culmination of that build was a bit underwhelming. But hey, perhaps that was just a local maximum. And the global is yet to come. Because if these guys make a song with (THE AUDACITY TO HAVE) lyrics like “enumerate” and “mitosis”, how could one (HAVE THE AUDACITY TO EVEN CONCEIVE OF ATTEMPTING TO) describe it without dipping into pre-calc lexicon?

[4.39]: The guitar’s gone back to the same three-note wave, ground zero, and now I’m kinda getting sick of it. Maynard’s singing… along it somewhat. Never straying too far, melodically¸ and thank God because his trajectory seems totally random.

Revisiting and revising the BROAAWM again. Another fun progression yes why not let’s go again it’s a fun ride, right?

[5.36]: Let it be noted that at this timestamp, he said the word “allegorical”. OooOOOoooh.

[5.51]: NEW RIFF WITH LOTTA DISTORTION. IT’S JUST OK FOR RN BUT I’M EXCITED TO SEE WHERE IT GOES.

I’m yelling, see, because it’s LOUD.

Some good percussion and one-note-per-bar bass notes really helping to hype this bridge.

Oh there’s Maynard again. And of course everything else gets totally muted once he comes along. Guitar’s all clean now, but playing the same riff you know what THAT MEANS it means we’re building again oh so much tension ooh I FEEEL it.

[7.03]: Some power chords mmkay I’m liking this. Drums getting harder. Really letting you know they’re there. Some staccato chugga-chuggas on the guitars, I can get behind that.

[7.36]: When will I learn? It all built up to Maynard’s chanting. What’s that you ask? Why yes, we DID just do this FOUR MINUTES ago. But it’s OK because now the guitar’s back! Playing its shiny new riff for all of us!

[8.43]: The drums and the guitar are engaged in a serious debate about where the song should go next, and I must confess, I’m invested. Where will they go now that they’re back where they’ve started? And for the third time, no less??

Oh, that’s right, nowhere. The drums are just kinda hitting a lot of uniform beats and the guitar’s lingering on the same note for uncomfortably long.

Alright all it’s built to is a ruthless assault on my skull. Nothing’s changing except the INCREASING VOLUME. More of the same monotonous rhythm and for some reason really REALLY amped guitar and bass playing the same goddamn notes AND ARE YOU KIDDING ME THE SONG’S OVER.

#tool2019 or some shit.

– Mans

[Listen] TOOL: “Fear Inoculum” NEW SINGLE! (Part 1)

HOLY FUCK IT’S A NEW SONG

RECORDED IN A STUDIO AND EVERYTHING

THEY SAID THIS DAY WOULD NEVER COME

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Now because thirteen years is a long time for fans to build up some pesky EXPECTATIONS and for bands to accumulate some pesky STYLISTIC CHANGES and all, I wanna give my two cents on how I think this whole album is gonna go down in terms of fan response:

Nothing can kill the hype that these guys/the fans have built over the last few years. Especially not with a song like this, so true to their original style, hitting all the right idiosyncratic notes. And for what it’s worth, I did, upon hearing it, pre-order the album. Y’know. For the culture.

Now here’s my two cents on the song itself.

It’s the same old Tool we all knew and loved. Same moving parts, same vacillation between winding along moody minimalist development passages, and dwelling in warm, thick-textured, pleasantly repetitive but short-lived riffs. The same bassline that grumbles agitatedly along beneath the rest for most of the song, rearing its head only during the (several) climactic swells. The same tarantismic correspondence between the drums and the guitars, the whole (magnificently seamless) machine scuttling fluidly and beautifully on its belly like a mutated arthropod, a wet, jet-black abomination of twisted limbs and translucent flesh. Maynard still the star of the show, multiplied for ethereal effect by accordion-folded vocal tracks. Running through all the same old tricks: wailing, whining, grunting, growling, just as well as he’d done on records long past and has continued to do in innumerable live shows since.

Bottom line: A great song, really, if only we hadn’t seen it so many times before. AND the song could have been like a third of the length and still felt complete as a composition. It builds well, as their songs always do. But we just climbed the same goddamn hill like six times. ALSO, unfortunately, Maynard’s vocals were easily the weakest part of the song. Sapping whatever energy the instrumentals summoned over all those minutes, and generally, melodically, sticking out like a sore thumb. Like if someone took that insect-monster that the perfect Tool song seeks to emulate and tried to jab a wooden chopstick into it and call it another leg.

Bottommost line: just go listen to “Rosetta Stoned”. You’ll have an almost identical but marginally better time.

In-depth analysis of the lyrics coming never.

-Mans

[Listen] BAD RELIGION: Age of Unreason NEW ALBUM! not anymore oops

AS;OIFH; AIE I HAVE THOUGHTS.

Which, on the surface, is a statement indicating nothing more than that I have strong opinions on this album.

BUT if I were Bad Religion it would be a defiant assertion of my rationality in the face of this AGE OF UNREASON.

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So this came out May 3, 2019, must have been at like midnight or something because I was up into the witching hour trying to finish a report of some kind and I’d been drifting between albums and artists and genres for the last TWO DAYS because I was in that awful limbo period where everything is BORING and I’d have killed a man to have something NEW but luckily it didn’t come to that because this popped up in my feed and I downloaded it instantly.

First impression on my fatigued brain: Meh. Sounded way too poppy, way too Green Day, way unlike their past efforts, and therefore awful because everyone knows that different = BAD. But that’s because it was 3 AM and I was hungry and exhausted and more importantly an IDIOT.

The second listen was a more positive experience. It struck a chord with me. I heard the disillusionment. I heard the dispossession. I heard the dis-in-fat-u-a-tion.

I also heard Chinese Democracy just before this album, whoops.

With Bad Religion being Bad Religion, and the whole album being called Age of Unreason, I guess it’s obvious (to Americans, anyway) that it’d be about American politics. See, with Bad Religion you never really have to guess what they’re singing about. Track 3, “Do the Paranoid Style”, has “American politics” in the lyrics of its chorus. They have an ode to one’s sanity, entitled “My Sanity”, featuring a short vignette in which the narrator is in a rocky relationship with his sanity, plagued by the homewrecker that is alternative facts. Cute, right?

But then they also have another song called “Lose Your Head” in case that wasn’t enough of an assurance to you that there’s some crazy shit going down in this country right now, and that you are perfectly sane for suspecting that . Honestly though, I do need to hear that. As many times as I can hear it.

So the lyrics are bold and brazen, as always. I can’t think of how better or more efficiently to support this than simply copying their lyrics here, so here are some of my favorites:

“Believers, dupes, and clowns, I want you all to gather ’round, to glorify ignorance and fear/I dispense misinformation to a post-truth generation. My darlings, don’t shed a tear/For I am your candidate” – from “Candidate”

“Just to think that not so long ago was a man who received the seal/He peddled blatant lies and brought back tyranny to divide his people with zeal” – from “Age of Unreason”

“Big cyber weapon, little traitor-in-chief/He’s got a big black dog on a leash” – from “Big Black Dog”

“Since when was it just a fallacy of tainted memory/(Since when?) To believe that things were really all right/Since when were the qualities of wisdom and knowledge/(Since when?) Equivalent to mere facts online?” – from “Since Now”

What’s also impressive (and was utterly overlooked by my sleep-deprived senses) was the spread of genres they managed to incorporate here. You’ve got the classic short-and-sweet speed-punk bangers like “Chaos from Within” and “Do the Paranoid Style”, some poppier melodic tunes like “Downfall” and “What Tomorrow Brings”, straight-up ballads like “Lose Your Head”, and whatever kind of swingy jam “Big Black Dog” is.

All wonderfully energetic, supplying their charged lyrics with the requisite momentum to penetrate the listener’s understanding. Their polysyllabic verbiage is never easy to catch on the first listen, but the urgency with which Greg Gaffin unloads them into your ears is enough to let you know that they’re Very Important.

Overall, cool album! Definitely topical, but I guess that’s only to be expected of a band like Bad Religion. What’s way more important is that it actually sounds good, and is one of my new favorites by the band. So there’s one good thing that the Trump presidency brought us.

ALSO they’re on tour in support of the album right now!! Yay! Go look it up here.

Oh, and don’t lose your head.

-Mans