Review: Tool offers impeccable musicianship, eye-popping stage in ‘Fear Inoculum’ stop at the Arena

Following a handful of international festival appearances, Tool kicked off its “Fear Inoculum Tour” at the Spokane Arena on Monday night to a nearly sold-out venue with fans converging from all across the Inland Northwest.

“Spokane!” singer Maynard James Keenan shouted after Tool’s opening song. A loud applause followed, but Keenan teased, “That sounded like Wenatchee – let’s try that again.” A more thunderous applause ensued, and the band played on into the night.

Tool is not unfamiliar with the area. Paul D’Amour, the original bassist, was born in Spokane but left the band on good terms in 1995 due to creative differences. Drummer Danny Carey took the stage Monday in his usual basketball attire, this time repping a Gonzaga University jersey No. 21 in honor of Rui Hachimura.

In rock music, it’s relatively common for bands to emphasize their stage antics while embracing a more minimalistic approach to stage tech. That is not the case with Tool. The band is famous for elaborate stage setups featuring massive screens, dancing lights, lasers, smoke and moving props.

Tool lived up to its reputation and wowed the Spokane Arena with impeccable musicianship atop an eye-popping stage. A theater-sized screen behind the band alternated between displaying the band’s dark, disorienting music videos and psychedelic visuals, ebbing and flowing with shapes simultaneously confusing and majestic.

Are the shapes capillaries? The inside of an iris? A moving ocean? Perhaps the real question is, “What drugs are the band members taking?” In all seriousness, the purpose of these visual effects goes hand-in-hand with the band’s music – tailor-made to “spiral out” and ponder the vastness of the human experience.

Metal acts are often known for aggressiveness, but that’s just one of many emotions in Tool’s repertoire. The band’s instrumentalists access an impressive variety of moods with just a hybrid drum kit, electric guitar and bass. Keenan’s poignant lyrics focus the message and drive it home.

Formed in 1990, Tool’s continued ability to fill arenas is somewhat surprising. Tool’s musical and songwriting prowess is undeniable, but in 2020 the band’s sound is far from being commercially viable. “Fear Inoculum,” the band’s fifth album, was released on Aug. 30, and, excluding interludes, each song on the record runs no shorter than 10 minutes.

Despite this, it received overwhelming critical acclaim and topped the Billboard Top 200, briefly eclipsing even the likes of Taylor Swift’s newly released “Lover.” The success of the latest release is likely two-fold. For one, it was the first album in 13 years, so fans had been chomping at the bit for new material for some time.

Secondly, Tool has undergone a slow and steady metamorphosis, transforming from a straightforward post-grunge hard rock group into a progressive metal band. Over the years, song structures changed from a standard 5-minute, verse-chorus-verse-chorus approach to lengthy three-movement epics.

But even when the band stuck mostly to the groovy, distorted guitar riffs and scream-singing that characterized most rock music in the ’90s, there were hints of Tool’s uncommon approach to the genre. Tool’s apparent refusal to write a song in standard 4/4 time is almost comical, as is the confused, syncopated head-bobbing of concertgoers.

This intentional change from a now-classic hard rock sound to full-blown prog metal appears all the more intentional when Tool performed zero songs from its debut album on Monday. The band played favorites such as “Schism,” “Ænima” and “Jambi” but stuck primarily to tracks from the latest release, the most elaborate and musically complex collection of songs yet.

The only area where “Fear Inoculum” falls short is the vocal performances – between lengthy instrumental interludes, Keenan’s croons are as captivating as ever, but he presents no new techniques and hits no particularly thrilling notes.

The same could be said for the live show at the Spokane Arena. Keenan avoided screaming and transposed down many of the high notes he successfully reached for in past years. Despite Tool’s decadelong hiatus, it can’t be chalked up to lack of practice, as Keenan sings in two other bands – A Perfect Circle and Puscifer.

The band is hardly worse for it, however, since Tool has long been an instrumentally driven rock act. It’s evident in the songwriting process – Carey and guitarist Adam Jones lay the foundation, and bassist Justin Chancellor adds groove and embellishments all before Keenan even hears the music. Vocals are the last piece of a complex puzzle.

That technical prowess was on full display on Monday. Surrounded at times by a transparent semicircle of curtain-like chains to grab stage lights, the dome-encased Tool felt larger than life as the rock band performed flawlessly across an impressive two-hour-long set. Tool returns to Washington on May 29 to perform at the Tacoma Dome.