PUSCIFER: Existential Reckoning (POP): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Knowing how to handle irony is not given to everyone. But for Maynard James Keenan, it is almost second nature. Irony is evident in a great majority of her texts, as a necessary distance to avoid falling into anger or despair. The last words of this new Puscifer album are "It's gonna be alright". It may be a way for the American to reassure himself, as he has been struggling since February with the after-effects of covid 19, which damaged his lungs and caused an inflammatory reaction in his joints. But he himself doesn't seem to believe it, and this timid message of hope sounds like the ironic happy ending to an album that is undoubtedly the most representative artistic testimony of this nightmarish year 2020.

Since its creation in the early 2000s, Puscifer has been Maynard James Keenan's playground, the one where he can indulge in all sorts of experimentation and eccentricities, with the blessing of his two classmates, Matt Mitchell and Carina Round. Although the singer's obsessions remain the same as with Tool and A Perfect Circle, with Puscifer they take conceptual detours that verge on the delirious. As on "Money Shot", Puscifer's previous album released in 2015, "Existential Reckoning" is centered around the character of Billy D, who this time seems to have been abducted by aliens while carrying a bottle of wine and a mysterious briefcase. His wife Hildy Berger calls Puscifer to find him and the three special agents quickly come to the conclusion that to locate him, a bridge must be built between intuition and technology ... The whole offbeat universe of Puscifer is summarized in this mix of "X-files" and the "Guide to the Galactic Routard", set to music with an almost insolent talent.

It is certain that, with its offbeat and avant-garde side, "Existential Reckoning" will not please everyone, because this album is much more conceptual art than entertaining music. Not only is it much darker than Puscifer's previous albums, but it is also almost completely free of the rock influences of the past. Puscifer creates nothing less than a new wave here. The band borrows vintage synthesizer sounds to build a modern and innovative electro pop, somewhere between Nine Inch Nails ('Grey Area') and David Bowie ('The Underwhelming').

This end of the world electro post punk atmosphere is underpinned by the use of Fairlight synthesizers on almost all the tracks. These old samplers, which once delighted Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Mike Oldfield and so many others, are the main material of "Existential Reckoning" and shape its minimalist harmonic bases. Puscifer's great strength is to make this minimalism complex and fascinating by multiplying rhythmic tracks in the manner of Peter Gabriel ('A Singularity', 'Fake Affront'), by superimposing acoustic drum patterns and synthetic drum machines and by creating unhealthy ('Apocalyptical') or disturbing ('Bullet Train To Iowa') atmospheres supported by haunting guitars.

But the real tour de force of "Existential Reckoning" remains the enormous work on the voices of Maynard James Keenan and Carina Round, which complement each other wonderfully and captivate us with their cold intensity. The precision with which they harmonize the vocal lines to achieve a perfect alchemy is brilliant and disturbing. The voices are used here as an instrument in their own right, melodic ('Personal Prometheus') and rhythmic ('Postulous'), whose density contrasts with the sophistication and apparent simplicity of the compositions.

As amusing as it is destabilizing, as dense as it is pure, "Existential Reckoning" is a true artistic work, a demanding album in more than one way, which requires several attentive listenings to appreciate its strange hypnotic power. Between existential quest and biting irony, Puscifer had never before approached the second degree with such seriousness. The world runs to its ruin and Puscifer watches it sink, laughing at the futility of existence. - Official website

PUSCIFER

EXISTENTIAL RECKONING

AUTRE LABEL

POP