Album Rating: 3.0

Mid album

Album Rating: 5.0

Things mid people say.

Album Rating: 4.5

Fear Inoculum walked so Time II could run

i don't remember most of this lol

Album Rating: 3.0

Because it's mid

Album Rating: 5.0

this is Tool's "easy-listening soft-rock album" for me. I find it a very soothing and comfy listen pretty much all the way (though I skip CCT 90% of the time)

Album Rating: 2.5

i don't remember most of this lol [2]

Album Rating: 2.5

Mid [2]

Album Rating: 2.5

Pneuma is an amazing track, the rest is utterly forgettable

Album Rating: 3.5

Pneuma, Descending, and Invincible are all good songs, but that's about it. Good. Not great, not earth-shattering, not revolutionary.

Album Rating: 5.0

Pneuma, Descending, and Invincible, AND Tempest. That's like 90% of the album lol. And honestly Culling grew on me a lot. I really found that song utterly underwhelming at first

Album Rating: 5.0

The rabble want instant gratification.

Album Rating: 3.5

Tempest was the only song that sounded like fresh TOOL. Otherwise it's hard to listen to the rest of the album and not think these are microwave-warmed riffs that Adam Jones resurrected from his Logic Pro Project folder.

Album Rating: 5.0

That's exactly how I felt initially. It just felt like deja vu and recycled riff ideas but after a while the compositions kind of sink in and I see what they were going for. Makes sense it took some time because the songs are so lengthy and drawn out. I get why people don't like it

Album Rating: 5.0

U get it but do u dig it

Album Rating: 5.0

yes

Album Rating: 5.0

I get tool on flashback, smoothered. I like it. Plus, tracks rule live.

Album Rating: 3.0

"took some time because the songs are so lengthy and drawn out"



That's the point. They're so bloated and lack any major payoff, ala drum break in 46&2, end of The Patient, breakdown in The Pot, etc. Even the purposeful melodic ditties are thin. Compare Culling Voices to something like Right in Two for example. Night and Day.



FI in general has a very "jam band" feel to it. There aren't a lot of really heavy hitting moments, it's kinda like floating through soup for 11 minutes at a time without hitting a chunky bit of meatball. There's not a lot going on vocally either, to fill it out or make one section memorable from the next.

Album Rating: 2.5

One of the things I dislike the most about this album is the vocals, you can definitely tell they are an afterthought. I am aware that recording the instrumentals first and waiting for them to be ready so Maynard can sing on top of them is standard Tool's Modus operandi, however, in previous albums, the vocals and the instrumentals did sound like they belonged together.

Album Rating: 3.0

1000% agree with this. Sometime around APC's last album Maynard's vocal style shifted too - they're much less "soar"ey. That's not a massive gripe in isolation, but paired with the really long winded musical passages in FI that repeat and repeat it's just not a good marriage.



I think this is a production issue too. Everything sounds so goddamn clean and clinical. There's zero personality or meat to dig into.