Not specifically replying to you, just to thread in general...has there been any chatter about further supply of the CD? I'm absolutely not willing to pay scalper prices (currently ~$240 from amazon resellers).

I got mine here:

Main Street Music
4.6 (96) · $$ · Record store
Philadelphia, PA · (215) 487-7732
Open â‹… Closes 7PM
Store with new & used CDs, vinyl & DVDs

They had a stack of them when I went to pick up mine.

If you call, find out they have it, and they won't ship it to you, let me know; I'll go pick it up and ship it to you.

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You have until midnight tonight.

https://store.toolband.com/...d-edition-cd-package

Done. Thanks for that. Wouldn't have noticed that otherwise.

After posting my question, I googled the answer. Thanks for confirmation. I was at the Hershey show, too.

I also perused ticket prices for both AC and Philly. Less expensive than VIP, all the way up to same as VIP (lower level in Wells Fargo) By the time I add in parking, TicketMaster fees and that I don't know I'll make it to another Tool concert after this, I have come to terms with the VIP price. That said, I understand the bait-and-switch frustration expressed by angry fans on social media. I definitely felt a taken when I first read your earlier message this morning.

Fuck Ticketmaster.

I don't use Ticketbastard frequently at all so I'm unfamiliar with its intricacies. I looked at tickets for the Monday, October 21 show in LA, but all that were shown to me at about 10:00:30 am and all subsequent reloads and reentries are tickets noted as resale with the minimum price being $350 a pop. Fuck that. I'll buy some bottles of Caduceus wine instead.

Did Ticketbastard shunt me into the resale marketplace or did the show really sell out that fast?

I was signed in on their site 15 minutes early, and a few minutes before 10:00 the screen popped up a "Click here to join the waiting room" message. Did that, and just after 10:00 I got a different screen showing I was about 2,000th in line. Yay. That took about 5-6 minutes to godwindle down to 1st, then the seat map appeared, and after several rounds of the process I mentioned above (including being redirected to a page to prove I wasn't a bot, presumably because I'd tried to buy tickets so many times) I managed to snag seats at around 10:20.

Granted, that was Atlantic City so it probably didn't sell as fast as LA.

Managed to score tickets for AC, one of my most frustrating ticket buying experiences ever. Fuck Ticketmaster. I'd find 3 seats together, then they'd disappear as soon as I put them in my cart. The seats I ended up with - 1st level, a few sections back from the stage - were the same price as ones right up front on the floor.

My buddy ended up having to get our Philly ones through StubHub. He won't tell me how much he paid over face because he feels he should eat the markup as he was late getting on the Ticketmaster site at 10am.

Best Tool album?

Lateralus is it in my opinion.

Predictably Fear Inoculum has crept up to the number 1 spot for me.

Also I'm completely reversing my opinion on "Invincible". Really digging that track now (especially the last 5 minutes or so).

My track ranking after a week or so of pretty consistent listening:

Culling Voices
7empest
Invincible
Pneuma
Fear Inoculum

The rest I have not given a ton of time to yet.

After dozens of repeated listens, my order is:

Pneuma (what a bass line, and the explosion around 9:20)
Invincible (yes - LOVE the last 5 minutes)
Culling Voices
Descending
7empest (I really dislike the first few minutes of this song - sounds like any number of lame metal bands I can hear on my local FM rock station)
Fear Inoculum

Let's be honest - that is the album. 6 monster tracks. The filler tracks and the drum solo add nothing and are pretty awful - they don't even flow into or out of the bookend tracks. Pretty disappointed in that aspect of the album.

Agreed - IMO they have zero bearing or relation to the actual songs on the album. At least previous albums' fillers (some, anyway) added something. I wouldn't miss Chocolate Chip Trip if they left that off, either.

My order right now:
Invincible
Pneuma
Descending
Culling Voices
Fear Inoculum
7empest

Skipjack wrote:

Intentionally listened to Chocolate Chip Trip on my way to lunch today...I just don't get it to be honest. Must be DC playing with some interesting time signatures and sounds/frequencies that I'm sure culminate in a formula that explains the universe...unfortunately I'm not sharp enough to unravel it so it just sounds like a bunch of random noise with drums going on.

Seems 7empest has really shot down the list for a number of folks. I'm still digging it but notice that after the first 5 minutes it gets kinda meh...also 15 minutes of it is about 5 minutes too long in my opinion.

But that first 5 minutes is pretty kick ass. Maintains a higher rank on my list due to it being the closest thing to "angry Maynard" on the album but it's not getting nearly as much playtime as it did a week ago.

Intentionally listened to Chocolate Chip Trip on my way to lunch today...I just don't get it to be honest. Must be DC playing with some interesting time signatures and sounds/frequencies that I'm sure culminate in a formula that explains the universe...unfortunately I'm not sharp enough to unravel it so it just sounds like a bunch of random noise with drums going on.

Threw on a few Beastie Boys records yesterday and came to the realization that THAT'S how you do interludes/instrumentals. These Tool interludes just seem like a waste of time to me.

..but watch in a few weeks one of them will somehow be my #1 track.

I've been wanting to weigh in, having rolled through the prior two studio albums as well to reconfim my thinking.

My 1st listening to Lateralus when it came out was, meh. Years later, I have no idea wtf led to that assessment, though I know I was bothered by lyrics I couldn't hear. Maynard is turned down a little and I miss out. This is what I distinctly recall irritated me about 10,000 Days, which seemed like an album I could only appreciate alone b/c the lyrics are so hard to hear.

Enter Fear i.can't.spell.it.yet. I was mostly under-whelmed. Don't get me wrong, excited AF to have new Tool, just missing the more aggressive lyrics. Initial impression, 7empest was my favorite and the other songs seemed soft. But really, lyrics aside, none of the music is easy listening. Guess I'm just impatient.

This week I can confirm, Culling Voices is definitely my favorite on this one. But I have a question!

What is all this "filler" to which y'all refer? I have promised myself to never listen to Chocolate Chip Trip again, after giving it several tries in the house and in the car. But that is the only one on my CD, which has just 7 tracks. MY better half pulled the song list up on the google, and it seems there are several other tracks???

I haven't downloaded my digital content yet. So maybe I get it then. But you folks have those other tracks on your cd's?

But I have a question!

What is all this "filler" to which y'all refer? I have promised myself to never listen to Chocolate Chip Trip again, after giving it several tries in the house and in the car. But that is the only one on my CD, which has just 7 tracks. MY better half pulled the song list up on the google, and it seems there are several other tracks???

I haven't downloaded my digital content yet. So maybe I get it then. But you folks have those other tracks on your cd's?

I listen through Spotify and there are 10 tracks. You're likely missing "Litanie contre la Peur," "Legion Inoculant," and "Mockingbeast."

Nope, no filler tracks on the CD. They are just on the digital download which is a good thing since they would otherwise just be a distraction IMO.

I'm still pretty high on this album. Each listen I enjoy it more than the last (though I did take a few days off of it). The musicianship, again my opinion, of this album is far superb to the past ones. Having said that the polish/mix put on the recording is pretty impressive and I have no doubt that is a big part of what I am hearing.

One thing that I do miss compared to past albums is the very linear/clear buildup and crescendo (classic prog rock shit) but what I'm starting to really appreciate about this one is that there seem to be several buildups/crescendo's within most of the tracks where the last is not as huge but is still slightly bigger than the previous ones within the same song...not sure if that makes sense or not.

Also catching a lot of really interesting double (maybe triple?) tracking of Maynard's voice throughout. Really noticeable in 7empest in the "we" parts (I think that one has to be triple tracked). No doubt there are a lot more neat tricks on this album still yet to be discovered.