THE BEAST

TOOL has announced nearly a dozen U.S. tour dates in May.

The band, which appears to be in the final stages of completing its new album, will play the following shows:

May 05 - Jacksonville, FL - Welcome To Rockville
May 07 - Birmingham, AL - Legacy Arena at The BCC
May 08 - Louisville, KY - KFC Yum! Center
May 10 - Hampton, VA - Hampton Coliseum
May 11 - Concord, NC - Epicenter
May 13 - St. Louis, MO - Enterprise Center
May 14 - Kansas City, MO - Spring Center
May 16 - Lincoln, NE - Pinnacle Bank Arena
May 17 - Des Moines, IA - Wells Fargo Arena
May 19 - Bridgeview, IL - Chicago Open Air

On Thursday (March 7), the group shared a photo of guitarist Adam Jones, bassist Justin Chancellor and drummer Danny Carey alongside the new TOOL album's producer, Joe Barresi, and mastering engineer Bob Ludwig, who previously mastered TOOL's most recent disc, 2006's "10,000 Days".

Although unconfirmed, it appears that the picture was taken at Gateway Mastering Studios in Portland, Maine. The mastering process is usually the last step, after recording and mixing, before an album gets pressed, released and distributed. TOOL entered the studio exactly one year ago, in March 2018, to begin recording the disc.

TOOL singer Maynard James Keenan recently said that the band's fifth full-length album and first in 13 years would likely arrive "between mid-May and mid-July."