The initial sticker shock of Tool's ultra-deluxe vinyl version of 2019's Fear Inoculum was warranted, but for the patient many who waited over a decade on the band's fifth studio album, its various elaborate, engaging and expensive physical forms should come as no surprise.
Long before tapping into the L.A. quartet's deep grooves, Fibonacci sequence explainers and the bassline from "Schism," I remember coming across the CD release of 2006's 10,000 Days in a small-town Ontario pawn shop. The packaging of Tool's fourth full-length — a foldout laminated sleeve with built-in stereoscopic viewing lenses dominating its detailed cover art — was unlike that of any CD I had seen before. This disc design would go on to win guitarist Adam Jones the 2007 Grammy for Best Recording Package, and through delving into their catalogue later on, I would learn just how much Tool value the form and function of their physical releases.
It's a creative tenet that clearly did not weaken all those years between 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum. Upon the latter album's initial release in 2019, three different variants of its CD edition arrived packaged in a brochure-style digipak that came with a rechargeable four-inch HD screen (with internal two-watt speaker) playing exclusive video "Recusant Ad Infinitum," a 36-page booklet and download card — the kind of trifold you might be handed by someone asking, "Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Maynard James Keenan?" An "expanded book edition" of the CD package soon followed, doing away with the rechargeable screen in favour of five exclusive 3D lenticular graphic cards, an expanded 56-page booklet with additional art, and a download of the "Recusant Ad Infinitum" visuals.
Until the arrival of Fear Inoculum's 5LP package this month, the band's apparent avoidance of the vinyl record format has left analog-minded Tool lovers in the lurch. Original pressings of '90s outings like Undertow and Ænima have come to command hundreds or even thousands of dollars on the secondary market. The lone official vinyl issue of 2001's Lateralus was pressed as a picture disc, a record format known to prioritize visual appeal over audio fidelity. Listener reviews of this version often reach a similar conclusion: it sounds pretty terrible.
As the "vinyl revival" spun into action this last decade, hard-to-find titles like Ænima and unsanctioned vinyl releases like 10,000 Days were given unofficial coloured vinyl pressings by enterprising record manufacturers, believed to have cut the grooves from digital audio sources of lesser quality than actual album masters. Fear Inoculum also suffered a similar fate: without an LP package arriving concurrently with other formats in 2019, the market was soon flooded with unofficial 2LP versions of various hues — looking aesthetically amateur compared to the set we see now.
The newly released 5LP ultra-deluxe edition of Fear Inoculum crushes that competition. As the first copies sold by the band at performances were autographed, preliminary offerings from an industry mired in manufacturing crisis, the subsequent wide release now sees the package priced at a little over $200 CAD. Signed or not, it remains an ornate offering: five single-sided records come housed in an alluring full-colour, mirror-board printed hardcover book, which slides into a matching bluish-purple mirror-board slipcase that people are already mounting on their walls.
Album sides B, D, F, H and J feature etchings of artwork by recurring visual collaborator Alex Grey, found in the hardcover book alongside lyrics (except "7empest," oddly), credits and exquisite die-cut design pages. Speaking on The Vinyl Guide podcast, design and layout lead Mackie Osborne shared that the etchings in particular were a tough element to get right, ultimately appearing fainter and less pronounced than expected. Compared to other etched records in my collection, these look more like screen prints. Be warned: they are also fingerprint magnets.
Flip through the book's mind-bending Grey artwork and painted portraits of each Tool member to the credits page, and you'll find that Fear Inoculum's prior releases use a different mastering than that of the newly arrived vinyl version. The album was recorded and mixed by "Evil" Joe Barresi on two-inch analog tape, and Chris Bellman — the revered Bernie Grundman Mastering engineer whose work includes Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill, k.d. lang's Ingénue, all manner of Neil Young releases and reissues going back three decades, and much more — lent his skill to the ultra-deluxe edition.
If you're looking for a sound test from a treated listening room on a turntable worth tens of thousands, look elsewhere. For transparency, my "mid-fi" is made up of a Technics SL-5200 direct drive turntable with an Ortofon 2M Red cartridge, paired with a NAD Model 60 amplifier (loudness off, treble and bass knobs neutral) driving a pair of Totem Mite bookshelf speakers. While impressed with their detail when playing electronic and jazz, I haven't always felt the speakers to be a perfect match with heavier music. Bellman's mastering job, however, put those concerns to rest quickly.
To explain this in Tool terms, third eyes will open upon hearing the Chris Bellman cut of this album. No disrespect to the mastering of CD and digital editions done by Bob Ludwig; the ultra-deluxe edition is Fear Inoculum at its grandest and grittiest. A highlight across the nine included compositions (digital version interlude "Litanie contre la peur" does not appear) is the immersive soundstage, a stunning speaker image of the four players and their respective places in the mix. A track like "Culling Voices" offers one of the set's most clinical examples of this: not unlike his real world stage position, vocalist Keenan is tucked in back of guitarist Jones's clean tones, leaving enough space for Justin Chancellor's bass guitar to slide in alongside around the five-minute mark without anything sounding muddied. Even as the track slinks towards its much more overdriven outro, sonic accuracy is never sacrificed in the name of loudness.
Even on a small set of speakers, the ultra-deluxe Fear Inoculum begs to be turned up to 11 through its full-band moments and extended, dynamic instrumental passages. As my neighbours would surely agree, it's a move that benefits a song like "Pneuma" with its meditative intro, rhythmic verse and chorus, and Jones's crushing post-chorus riff that comes to lay the calm to waste. The detail of the intricate interplay between voice, drums and guitar in opening "Invincible" is sure to amaze, up to and after the arrival of Chancellor's pulsing bass, while a cycling riff from Jones that chugs along just past the seven-and-a-half-minute mark somehow sounds even more imposing on wax. The treatment of Danny Carey's drums cannot be overlooked, the size and spatiality of his near-360-degree kit felt every time he takes a serious run at his toms. In this regard, his solo section on drum-synth concoction "Chocolate Chip Trip" is a standout — until someone in or out of your listening environment asks you to turn it down, anyway.
I didn't bring the stereoscopic 10,000 Days CD home from that pawn shop visit, but jumped at the chance when I found another copy thrifting some years later. In her Vinyl Guide podcast appearance, Osborne offered insight into other potential package designs — a magnetic flip top box, zoetrope or "hologram" vinyl among them — that were considered, but ultimately rejected in order to keep Fear Inoculum's vinyl edition at a somewhat reasonable price point. Perhaps most importantly, she hinted that the Tool back catalogue could make a more serious return to wax in the not so distant future.
If Tool went full Mars Volta and packaged their entire discography in a single box set, those high three-figure prices would be easier to stomach. Until then, Fear Inoculum's 5LP ultra-deluxe edition is unquestionably the summit of Tool's over-the-top ambition for physical releases, with the commanding analog master cementing that status.
Long before tapping into the L.A. quartet's deep grooves, Fibonacci sequence explainers and the bassline from "Schism," I remember coming across the CD release of 2006's 10,000 Days in a small-town Ontario pawn shop. The packaging of Tool's fourth full-length — a foldout laminated sleeve with built-in stereoscopic viewing lenses dominating its detailed cover art — was unlike that of any CD I had seen before. This disc design would go on to win guitarist Adam Jones the 2007 Grammy for Best Recording Package, and through delving into their catalogue later on, I would learn just how much Tool value the form and function of their physical releases.
It's a creative tenet that clearly did not weaken all those years between 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum. Upon the latter album's initial release in 2019, three different variants of its CD edition arrived packaged in a brochure-style digipak that came with a rechargeable four-inch HD screen (with internal two-watt speaker) playing exclusive video "Recusant Ad Infinitum," a 36-page booklet and download card — the kind of trifold you might be handed by someone asking, "Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Maynard James Keenan?" An "expanded book edition" of the CD package soon followed, doing away with the rechargeable screen in favour of five exclusive 3D lenticular graphic cards, an expanded 56-page booklet with additional art, and a download of the "Recusant Ad Infinitum" visuals.
Until the arrival of Fear Inoculum's 5LP package this month, the band's apparent avoidance of the vinyl record format has left analog-minded Tool lovers in the lurch. Original pressings of '90s outings like Undertow and Ænima have come to command hundreds or even thousands of dollars on the secondary market. The lone official vinyl issue of 2001's Lateralus was pressed as a picture disc, a record format known to prioritize visual appeal over audio fidelity. Listener reviews of this version often reach a similar conclusion: it sounds pretty terrible.
As the "vinyl revival" spun into action this last decade, hard-to-find titles like Ænima and unsanctioned vinyl releases like 10,000 Days were given unofficial coloured vinyl pressings by enterprising record manufacturers, believed to have cut the grooves from digital audio sources of lesser quality than actual album masters. Fear Inoculum also suffered a similar fate: without an LP package arriving concurrently with other formats in 2019, the market was soon flooded with unofficial 2LP versions of various hues — looking aesthetically amateur compared to the set we see now.
The newly released 5LP ultra-deluxe edition of Fear Inoculum crushes that competition. As the first copies sold by the band at performances were autographed, preliminary offerings from an industry mired in manufacturing crisis, the subsequent wide release now sees the package priced at a little over $200 CAD. Signed or not, it remains an ornate offering: five single-sided records come housed in an alluring full-colour, mirror-board printed hardcover book, which slides into a matching bluish-purple mirror-board slipcase that people are already mounting on their walls.
Album sides B, D, F, H and J feature etchings of artwork by recurring visual collaborator Alex Grey, found in the hardcover book alongside lyrics (except "7empest," oddly), credits and exquisite die-cut design pages. Speaking on The Vinyl Guide podcast, design and layout lead Mackie Osborne shared that the etchings in particular were a tough element to get right, ultimately appearing fainter and less pronounced than expected. Compared to other etched records in my collection, these look more like screen prints. Be warned: they are also fingerprint magnets.
Flip through the book's mind-bending Grey artwork and painted portraits of each Tool member to the credits page, and you'll find that Fear Inoculum's prior releases use a different mastering than that of the newly arrived vinyl version. The album was recorded and mixed by "Evil" Joe Barresi on two-inch analog tape, and Chris Bellman — the revered Bernie Grundman Mastering engineer whose work includes Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill, k.d. lang's Ingénue, all manner of Neil Young releases and reissues going back three decades, and much more — lent his skill to the ultra-deluxe edition.
If you're looking for a sound test from a treated listening room on a turntable worth tens of thousands, look elsewhere. For transparency, my "mid-fi" is made up of a Technics SL-5200 direct drive turntable with an Ortofon 2M Red cartridge, paired with a NAD Model 60 amplifier (loudness off, treble and bass knobs neutral) driving a pair of Totem Mite bookshelf speakers. While impressed with their detail when playing electronic and jazz, I haven't always felt the speakers to be a perfect match with heavier music. Bellman's mastering job, however, put those concerns to rest quickly.
To explain this in Tool terms, third eyes will open upon hearing the Chris Bellman cut of this album. No disrespect to the mastering of CD and digital editions done by Bob Ludwig; the ultra-deluxe edition is Fear Inoculum at its grandest and grittiest. A highlight across the nine included compositions (digital version interlude "Litanie contre la peur" does not appear) is the immersive soundstage, a stunning speaker image of the four players and their respective places in the mix. A track like "Culling Voices" offers one of the set's most clinical examples of this: not unlike his real world stage position, vocalist Keenan is tucked in back of guitarist Jones's clean tones, leaving enough space for Justin Chancellor's bass guitar to slide in alongside around the five-minute mark without anything sounding muddied. Even as the track slinks towards its much more overdriven outro, sonic accuracy is never sacrificed in the name of loudness.
Even on a small set of speakers, the ultra-deluxe Fear Inoculum begs to be turned up to 11 through its full-band moments and extended, dynamic instrumental passages. As my neighbours would surely agree, it's a move that benefits a song like "Pneuma" with its meditative intro, rhythmic verse and chorus, and Jones's crushing post-chorus riff that comes to lay the calm to waste. The detail of the intricate interplay between voice, drums and guitar in opening "Invincible" is sure to amaze, up to and after the arrival of Chancellor's pulsing bass, while a cycling riff from Jones that chugs along just past the seven-and-a-half-minute mark somehow sounds even more imposing on wax. The treatment of Danny Carey's drums cannot be overlooked, the size and spatiality of his near-360-degree kit felt every time he takes a serious run at his toms. In this regard, his solo section on drum-synth concoction "Chocolate Chip Trip" is a standout — until someone in or out of your listening environment asks you to turn it down, anyway.
I didn't bring the stereoscopic 10,000 Days CD home from that pawn shop visit, but jumped at the chance when I found another copy thrifting some years later. In her Vinyl Guide podcast appearance, Osborne offered insight into other potential package designs — a magnetic flip top box, zoetrope or "hologram" vinyl among them — that were considered, but ultimately rejected in order to keep Fear Inoculum's vinyl edition at a somewhat reasonable price point. Perhaps most importantly, she hinted that the Tool back catalogue could make a more serious return to wax in the not so distant future.
If Tool went full Mars Volta and packaged their entire discography in a single box set, those high three-figure prices would be easier to stomach. Until then, Fear Inoculum's 5LP ultra-deluxe edition is unquestionably the summit of Tool's over-the-top ambition for physical releases, with the commanding analog master cementing that status.
