Update: And just like that, we’re back to square one. Jones says he was only kidding about the album’s impending release. In a statement to Rolling Stone, the band adds, “Last night, Adam Jones, in a private conversation with fans attending the Portland Tool concert, joked that the band’s new album was not only finished but coming out the next day,” says the statement. “Unfortunately, his off-the-cuff joke was taken out of context. Work on the forthcoming album is ongoing and as soon as it is done, trust me, we will be the first to let everyone know.”

Here’s a sentence eight years in the making: Tool have finished their new studio album.



According to Crave Online, guitarist Adam Jones has confirmed that the long-awaited follow-up to 2006’s 10,000 Days is “100% done” and should arrive later this year.

In an interview with Loudwire last summer, drummer Danny Carey insinuated that some outside forces were holding up the album’s release. “We could have the record finished by the end of the year – that’s a possibility, but the logistics of getting it manufactured and getting the record company in line and all this stuff, I doubt we’ll be able to get it out before Christmas. We’ll see how it goes. Most likely, it’ll be early 2014.”

Meanwhile, frontman Maynard James Keenan spoke about the band’s intricate recording process in an interview with Rolling Stone last November. “I don’t write the music. They write the music,” he said of his bandmates. “I wait for them to bring music to me. They tend to go back over and over stuff. It’s a long process. For a person like me, it can be a very tedious process.”

Keenan continued, “In some ways, they are bigger perfectionists. But you can only help support their talent so long. They don’t have to go through it 700 times. They can trust that first thought. But that’s their process, so you gotta let them do it.” And is that process happening? “I couldn’t tell you.”

Tool is currently touring the U.S., their first such jaunt in two years. Thus far, they’ve stuck to the greatest hits.