I have to say that I'm really impressed on my first listen. I did fear for the worst given the break and the very high standard of Tool's previous discography.
I think the sound is a mix between Lateralus and 10000 days. The lyrical themes seem to have a more spiritual bent like Lateralus but there is a lot of the deep groove heavy riffing we heard on 10000 days. I think it's definitely some of the bands best work but perhaps not so with Maynard. His work seems pretty sparse on the album so far.
The special edition CD has now gone up in price on UK Amazon from £74.99 - £86.95! I can only imagine the high demand has led to them being able to rinse fans. Its criminal how much more expensive this edition is in the UK than North America.
This is a pretty good write up, I enjoyed the characterisation on those annoying Tool fans.
https://www.stereogum.com/2056674/tool-fear-inoculum-review/franchises/premature-evaluation/
There’s a longstanding rumor that back when Spin was still a print publication, the editors would get a letter a day demanding a Tool cover story. The singer for a Tool cover band once described to me, with no small amount of worshipful tone, the depth of their compositions, the scientific and philosophical breadth of frontman Maynard James Keenan’s lyrics; he went on to say how non-mainstream the band was, and “that’s why you probably haven’t heard of them.”