Tool Fear Inoculum impressions

I think it's a great sounding record, I miss some of the vitriol and rawness of their earlier work.

Wow. Some good points.

Yes, I also feel they’ve "matured". Anyone expecting to hear their earlier material such as Undertow or Aenima (frankly, I think all want more of that), won’t find it anymore in Tool. Opiate and Undertow were more of the traditional 90’s rock style but in Aenima you can see how they started to get more melodic and mature.
Lateralus went even further in that direction. 10,000 days, I just didn’t care for. It just wasn't my cup of tea and not the sound I wanted to hear from Tool. So because of that, I was not as excited as I wanted to be a few months before Fear Inoculum came out.

That said, a few weeks ago when I heard the single, my initial impression was that it was pretty good. I didn’t love it, but I thought it was pretty good.

Now, this is a very important part of my assessment... After I listened a few times the song grew on me to the point where I couldn’t stop playing it. I played it INCESSANTLY. I just heard it in a different way that upon first listen I couldn’t grasp completely. And this is the main sticking point with me and Tool. In my 44 years on this Earth I’ve never heard a band that made music that grew on me more than Tool. It was after I listened to the single many, many times that I became extremely excited for the album.

The album is 1 hour and 26 minutes of information overload. It’s just too much to grasp on first listen. After I listened to it the first time, there were two songs that I was iffy about and they were Pneuma and Culling Voices. After a few more plays of both, I can’t stop playing them. Again, that’s the thing with tool. For some reason they make music that my brain hears differently every time I hear it. They’re ridiculously talented.

I heard 1 song from it for the first time today and liked it, but I can't buy the CD until it comes out in a normal edition that's under $100.00. 

I still like 10.000 days very much. 

Agreed Roxy, it's crazy pricing so far.
Saying that a store in Holland is offering vinyl at 35 € which is a bit more sensible.

I can wait though, the Qobuz hirez is very good listening indeed.

I bought the special edition of 10,000 days when it came out which has built-in fold out glass magnifying spectacles to look at the pages of artwork and I thought that was an extravagance at about $25.00 if I recall correctly, but this is too much.