TOOL: New Album Update

Last summer Danny Carey was quoted in an interview about work for a new TOOL album, he said the band was planning on hitting the studio in June or July to start tracking.

A few days ago, one of the admins for the official TOOL site posted an update stating that he got a chance to check out some of the new material with drummer Danny Carey:

"Something that might be encouraging to some Tool enthusiasts is that while riding with Danny to Chili John's yesterday, I heard a lot of new Tool music (sans Maynard). This was the most new material that I've heard so far, although a few of the riffs and arrangements were familiar. So, what did I think? Dare I say that it sounded like... Tool (some of it reminiscent to earlier Tool stuff, with other parts pushing the envelope), and I assume that it will sound even more like Tool once the vocal melodies, etc. have been added. To answer your next question, I cannot say how far along in the writing process the band is. If I had to GUESS, I would say more than half way (and keep in mind that in the past, at least, the writing went faster once the first few [more complex] songs were finished)."

Metal Insider points out that TOOL is currently confirmed for Ozzfest Japan in May, which is only five months away, and with the way labels work, that means the band would have to be done with the album by March for it to have enough time to be released. Could they be anticipating having a new album out by then?

[Via: Metal Injection]