Fear Inoculum

Fear Inoculum is the fifth studio album by the American rock band Tool. It was released on August 30, 2019, through Tool Dissectional, Volcano Entertainment, and RCA Records. It is the band's first album in 13 years, due to creative, personal, and legal issues band members encountered since the release of 10,000 Days. It was released to critical acclaim, with reviewers generally agreeing that the band had successfully refined their established sound. The album topped the US Billboard 200 chart, their third in a row to do so, selling over 270,000 album-equivalent units. The album topped five other national album charts in its opening week as well. Two songs off the album received Grammy nominations, the first single "Fear Inoculum", for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song, and "7empest", for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance, with the latter winning the award.

Background

Writing

In 2006, Tool released their fourth studio album, 10,000 Days. It topped the US Billboard 200 album chart and was certified platinum by the RIAA, indicating more than one million units sold, a month later. The band toured heavily in support of the album, playing more than 200 shows through 2007. After this, frontman Maynard James Keenan mentioned that he saw Tool breaking up in the near future, and focused on his side project, Puscifer. However, by early 2008, at the 50th Grammy Awards, Keenan announced to MTV that the band would begin writing new material for their fifth studio album "right away".