Yes, Tool's new album has taken 13 years to complete. Countless memes and jokes later, we're just a few weeks shy of the release of Fear Inoculum. While it may have been entertaining to harp on the length of time the band has taken to put out another record, the members assure that the final result will not be in vain.

In a new issue of Revolver, Adam Jones, Danny Carey, Justin Chancellor and Maynard James Keenan collectively agree on the theme behind the album - growing older and wiser.

"It's about the little things in life," begins Jones. "It's making those choices that are important to you and moving on and growing." After confirming the album length to be around 85 minutes long - made up of seven tracks and two segues - the guitarist compares the songs to movements. "It's like two or three songs in one, but they relate. They flow."

"Well, I suppose the main overview of it is getting older and more comfortable with yourself," Carey reflects. "It's kind of an evolution in that way, getting through and getting over criticisms and our fears of various kinds, I suppose."

The four masterminds of Tool are well aware of the impatience their fanbase has been spewing for new material over the last decade, but they never let it bother them. "They've all taken a long time, but I've never felt so satisfied that we did everything we wanted to do," Chancellor adds. "That's something that comes with maturity. You have to be completely brave and sincere about what you're doing to just not ever compromise and change it to what you think someone else might want."

Keenan, the band's ever-mysterious frontman, weighs in on the overall concept of the record while striving to keep its ambiguity. "I feel like that's always an individual's right to process things in the way they wanna process them, and I wouldn't wanna take that from you," he teases. "So if anything is a broad stroke of this album, it would be embracing where we are right now, acknowledging where we've come from and some of the things we've gone through."

The vocalist does warn that patience is an important virtue to uphold when listening to the album, comparing it to a slow-developing movie full of character development. "There's gonna be a lot of people who might not get this album because it does take engagement...It's just what we do."

Fear Inoculum arrives Aug. 30. See if Tool are playing near you here.