It took a 13 long, long, years to see release, but Tool’s new album Fear Inoculum is a masterpiece, and it deserves nothing but respect on its name. So far the album has been met with hectic amounts of critical praise, as well as being lauded by fans as completely worth the wait. It’s what Tool deserve.
Fear Inoculum debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, dethroning Taylor Swift’s Lover in the process. It marks the third No. 1 album of Tool’s career, and is the biggest week for any rock album in over one year.
In its first week of release, Fear Inoculum moved 270,000 equivalent album units, 248,000 of which were pure album sales. As Billboard notes, those numbers are particularly astonishing as Tool achieved them “without the assistance of a concert ticket/album sale redemption offer, any sort of album pre-order/pre-sale access code promotion, or a single merchandise/album bundle — all of which have become the norm for most major albums in recent years as artists struggle to sell albums through more old-fashioned or traditional methods.”
Let’s not forget Taylor’s Lover was sold in three, yes three, different deluxe versions. Tool don’t need to rely on such petty party tricks.
After debuting at No. 1 last week, Swift’s Lover fell to No. 2 on the Billboard charts with 178,000 album units moved. Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! debuted at No. 3 with 104,000 equivalent album units.
In a recent interview we did with Tool, the band said on the album’s creative process:
“Being honest with ourselves and being honest to the songs we’ve written, that place where we meet together, that’s the goal.”
“We just get together and jam and whatever happens is what happens. It’s a real organic process and we don’t try to force it. Maybe that’s why it partly takes so long, which is a bit of a drag for the fans. But it’s the way we’ve always done it, so we don’t really have much of a choice about it.”
