Pre-Orders for Physical Copies of Tool’s Fear Inoculum Appear to Be Sold Out

Just this morning, we learned that Slipknot’s We Are Not Your Kind is the first the first hard rock album to top the chart since the 2017 Foo Fighters album Concrete and Gold. At that time, I noted that it would be interesting to see the eventual sales figures for Tool’s first new album in thirteen years, Fear Inoculum, which comes out August 30 (read our initial thoughts on the record here).

Well, we obviously don’t have sales figures yet, but it seems like a safe bet that those numbers will be high… because pre-orders of physical copies of the album have evaporated.

Go to the band’s official Fear Inoculum pre-order link and click on Amazon, and you’ll find that the service lists pre-orders of the album on CD as “Currently Unavailable.” They don’t offer vinyl pre-orders at all.

Go to the band’s official Fear Inoculum pre-order link and click on “Independent Record Stores,” and you’ll be taken to the Record Store Day website. There, you’ll find a disclaimer alerting you that pre-orders are now closed “due to incredible demand.”

Poke around online looking for pre-orders and you’ll find yourself just as much out of luck: from Walmart to Target to Rough Trade to local independent retailers, everyone is sold out.

In our current day and age, this would be an impressive feat regardless of any other circumstances. But as you’ve likely noticed by now, CD copies of the album are quite expensive by modern standards. That’s because the album packaging has a lot of bells and whistles, including a 4” HD rechargeable screen with exclusive video footage, charging cable, 2-watt speaker, a 36-page book, and a code to download an MP3 edition of the album that’s listed as being ten minutes longer than the physical edition. Even for Tool, who have a history of making awesome album packaging, this thing is a beast. Still, the fact that people are pre-ordering physical copies of Fear Inoculum in droves despite the high price tag speaks to how passionate and hungry for new material Tool’s fans really are.

Luckily, Tool are finally on all the digital streaming services now, so even if you can’t get your paws on a physical copy of Fear Inoculum right away, you still won’t have to wait to hear it. PHEW!!!

Thanks: Michael D.