Tool guitarist Adam Jones said the band is aiming to start recording their long-awaited fifth album in March. His brief update came after frontman James Maynard Keenan said he’d completed writing lyrics and melodies for every song but one, after “11 years of begging” his colleagues to provide final versions of the instrumental parts.

“Huge fun & honor performing all the new tunes for Guinea pigs Sebastian & #KingBuzz b4 the recording starts in March,” Jones wrote in an Instagram reply to Sebastian Bach, who’d revealed that he’d been allowed to hear some of the material in progress. “Still instrumentals with Mjk in town work on killer lyrics. Exciting.”

Bach had previously said: “This is not just your average simple rock and roll music. This is progressive metal at its most atmospheric and right when you get into a groovy trance you get beat over the head with riffs so heavy it feels like a TOOL. Some tunes were so pummeling it felt like I was getting a deep tissue massage. In fact they could call the record that. No song was shorter than seven minutes and some were 20 minutes long! Just my idea of how to spend the perfect day!" His comments about song length echoed those of drummer Danny Carey, who recently observed: “The tracks are long… too long! Definitely too long for the radio!”

Carey had sparked speculation that the follow-up to 2006’s 10,000 Days might arrive during the summer, but Keenan appeared to shoot that theory down, calling it “horses--t” and telling a fan: “Not. Coming out this summer. Not.” That led followers to speculate that the album could be titled “Not” and that the frontman was actually confirming its launch schedule. Meanwhile, Keenan – who’ll release a new A Perfect Circle album Eat the Elephant in April – is also starting work on a new Puscifer LP, according to a post on the band’s Instagram account.

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