Today, August 7th, Tool finally dropped the first proper single off their forthcoming fifth album, Fear Inoculum, specifically, the LP’s title track, and it’s as epic and transcendent as fans could have hoped: 10-plus minutes of prog-metal nirvana. The song is available for streaming and purchase now. Also finally available is the pre-order for the album Fear Inoculum. The LP is available in an array of digital and physical formats, including a deluxe, limited-edition CD version. Conceived by and directed by Jones, it features a 4-inch HD rechargeable screen with exclusive video footage, charging cable, two-watt speaker, a 36-page booklet and a digital download card. A vinyl release is expected to be announced shortly, as well.
Not available today — and likely never, as is the band’s way — are the official lyrics to “Fear Inoculum.” Singer Maynard James Keenan is notoriously cagey about his lyrics, preferring to leave them up to interpretation by the listener. Still, he did give Revolver some insight into the overall theme of the upcoming album — and by proxy, its title track — in the magazine’s new cover story. “I feel like this is [about] wisdom through age, through experience,” the singer explained. “Hopefully through aging you find wisdom in some of the things you’ve encountered. Learning from your mistakes, learning from your successes. So if anything is a broad stroke of this album, it would be embracing where we are right now, acknowledging where we’ve come from and some of the things we’ve grown through.”
Those ideas seem to play out across the lyrics of “Fear Inoculum,” which you can read below via fans’ best estimation (courtesy of Genius) below:
“Fear Inoculum” lyrics:
[Verse 1]
Immunity
Long overdue
Contagion
I exhale you
Lying
I opened up to you
Venom in mania
[Bridge 1]
Now, contagion
I exhale you
[Spoken Bridge]
The deceiver says, he says
You belong to me
You don’t wanna breathe the light of the others
Fear the light
Fear the breath
Fear the others for eternity
But I hear them now inhale the clarity
Hear the venom, the venom in
What you say inoculated
Bless this immunity
Bless this immunity
Bless this immunity
[Chorus]
Exhale, expel
Recast my tale
Weave my allegorical elegy
[Verse 2]
Enumerate
All that I’m to do
Calculating steps away from you
My own
Mitosis
Growing through
Delusion from mania
[Chorus]
Exhale, expel
Recast my tale
Weave my allegorical elegy
[Post-Chorus]
Forfeit
All control
You poison
You spectacle
[Bridge 2]
Exorcise the spectacle
Exorcise the malady
Exorcise the disparate
Poison for eternity
Purge me and evacuate
The venom and the fear that binds me
[Verse 3]
Unveil now
Lift away
I see you
Running
Deceiver
Chased away
A long time
Coming
