working on new material

In March 2022, Carey announced they were working on new material for their sixth studio album, noting that “..it won’t take us this long for the next one. We even had some stuff left over from the last one that we’ll develop. We have head starts on three or four new songs.” In October 2023, Chancellor reiterated this, and noted he hoped the band would enter the studio to record in 2024 after finishing touring. In January 2024, Carey mentioned the new album has the possibility of having a shorter track lengths, noting that “we could just go back to doing an Undertow [type of] record. That’s kind of appealing to me.” In February 2025, Chancellor stated that Tool would “dedicate the next three months” in the studio to “organizing [their] ideas” for new music. In September 2025, Keenan said the band’s plans for 2026 would be “Writing, I guess”, while Jones mentioned having “lots of riffs” and plans to do a “dive deep soon” into the writing process for album six. In early 2026, Carey stated that the band is “working on a lot of new Tool songs now, hopefully [for release in] 2027, that’s the goal”, in hopes of releasing it in tandem with a possible residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Jones later revealed that they were asked to be the first band to open the venue in 2023, but band politics prevented it from happening, and U2 was the first band instead.