Hear Me Out: Is It Too Late For Tool?

Wherein a lifelong fan begrudgingly approaches the band's forthcoming, forever-in-the-making fifth album from a practical standpoint.

I suspect I'm not alone in my admiration of Tool. Like many budding young men in the early nineties, this was a band that seemingly fell from the sky, twisting the grimy ethos of Alice in Chains and Soundgarden and smashing it gleefully into the widescreen prog vision of Pink Floyd and King Crimson, Tool were (and, if we're being honest, remain) incredible in their unique darkness. There are many bands who have tried to tap into what this band has done, all doomed to fail.

I digress; their dizzying musicianship, along with Maynard James Keenan's do-no-wrong voice, positioned the band squarely in my top three bands of all time by the time Ænima was released in the fall of 1996 (alongside, at the time, Metallica and Pearl Jam). Such was their perceived importance to music that I dubbed them one of the all time greats after hearing two albums and an EP, but I didn't hesitate and I never regretted it. My faith was well rewarded with 2001's Lateralus, an album of such incredible depth and substance that I can still listen to it nearly fifteen years later and feel my heart tremble with joy.

If Tool had stopped right then, they would have already carved out one hell of a career; there aren't many artists I can name who have released a trilogy of albums in succession to challenge the run of Undertow, Ænima and Lateralus. Of course I wanted more; anyone who comes out of Lateralus not wanting more isn't doing this whole "listening to music" thing right. In fact, as the release date for fourth album 10,000 Days drew nearer and nearer to becoming a reality, fans like me hung off of every scrap we could get. A quote here, a pic there, rumours everywhere, it didn't matter: we devoured it all. It was painful wading through all the fiction looking for facts, but it gave us something to do while we waited.

At this point, we've pretty much run out of things to do; as of the writing of this article, it has been 3,194 days since Tool have released an album. To put this into perspective, consider that the iPhone didn't exist the last time Tool released an album. One of my newer favourite bands, The Gaslight Anthem, formed and have released their entire discography to date (five albums) since Tool released an album. Even Pearl Jam, who released their self titled record on the same day as 10,000 Days and have become somewhat known for making their fans wait as they get older and less engaged, have managed to release two more albums, countless live releases, a couple of reissue box sets and a 20th anniversary documentary since Tool released an album.

Which is all a roundabout way to say that the climate Tool releases their next album into will be vastly different from the one that existed in 2006, and that doesn't necessarily bode well for it.

Here's why:

THE ANTICIPATION FACTOR
No matter how patient we may be (and by now it's well established just how key patience is to being a Tool fan), there isn't a day that goes by that doesn't add to the anticipation. As fans grow more and more restless during this endless interim, so climb expectations. Just ask Axl Rose; once the agonizing fourteen year wait for Chinese Democracy was over, it was greeted not with open arms but with scathing criticism and merciless skewering by fans who expected nothing less than Appetite for Destruction II: Judgment Day. The longer Tool takes to finish their next LP, the finer the microscope it'll be under. If they wait too much longer and it's not the Second Coming of Ænima, I'd presume a swift, unfair backlash.

PEOPLE MOVE ON
I realize that, as a stout consumer of music who's nearing the age of forty, I'm a minority. The times have most certainly changed (which I'll touch on in a bit), but one constant throughout the years has been that teenagers usually grow up, move on with their lives and find better uses for their time and money than rock n' roll. Even impressionable teens who had 10,000 Days released at the same point in their lives that I got Opiate are turning 25 this year, and a good number of them will have surely lost interest in the band by the time the next record is out.

10,000 DAYS WASN'T EXACTLY THEIR BEST MOMENT
It's not a bad record, mind you; indeed, it packs more than its fair share of thrills. It just didn't strike the same chord that previous albums did, partly because some of it felt like one of the greatest bands of our time treading water. It wasn't as urgent, nor as special, as Lateralus, nor did it pack the same primal wallop of Ænima or Undertow. As a band that had consistently and restlessly expanded their horizons as well as those of listeners, it was a little disconcerting to hear what amounted to the band settling in.

(MAYBE) THEY'RE JUST NOT THAT INTO IT

For as much time as litigation and family commitments can consume, at the end of the day if you've got no creative energy left for the songs, you don't care about the songs. Look, I've read the reports of that ugly lawsuit, and it really sucks that they're going through that. I also know that Maynard schedules all band activities around his vineyard, in addition to having released a couple of albums and a handful of EPs with Puscifer over the years since Tool's last record. And I know that the band needs money to fight the good fight, which is why they've taken a month out of the litigation and wine making schedule every year since 2009 to tour. Is it really so difficult to get this done, or has it just been too much bother?

(ALMOST) NO ONE'S GOING TO BUY THE THING ANYWAY

You know, maybe they have a point in the touring and the wine. When 10,000 Days was released, I was still working in a CD store because CD stores were still a thing that existed in most cities back then (RIP CD Plus). Rampant downloading and the rapid rise of subscription streaming services have replaced the music shopping experience with a dirt cheap all-you-can-eat buffet, but why pay $20 on a nice quarter chicken dinner at a sit-down restaurant when you can take that cash to the BK drive-thru and trade it for 100 chicken nuggets? This is the attitude of the average music consumer in 2015. Hell, even I put down my $10 a month for Google Play Music, which has rendered my CD buying a habitual periodic feeding of my inner hoarder. I paid money for the new Decemberists album a week ago, and I took off the plastic and looked at the artwork, but I've yet to spin the disc itself even though I've heard the album a good twenty times already on my phone. A band that puts as much into the artwork and visuals as Tool has to be wondering deep down whether it's worth the effort for the sake of  - if they're lucky - a couple hundred thousand CD sales (as opposed to the two and a half million for 10,000 Days). 

Whatever the case, whenever it arrives and whoever survives to hear it, Tool's fifth album feels doomed to be a casualty of time. I really hope I'm wrong, and that they absolutely slay my ass (and the sooner the better); I usually pride myself on my insights, but this is one case where I'd dearly love to eat my words. It just feels like at this point there's an underlying attitude of "too much effort for too little reward", and I feel like the only thing Tool can do that's worse than getting comfortable is phoning it in.