Here at Runout, we offer our subscribers one of the most overlooked albums of 2020 this month. Released in October 2020 and Puscifer’s 4th album, Existential Reckoning, arrived 5 years after their last release ‘Money Shot’, and in short order when you dig deep into the driving force an instigator of the band Maynard James Keenan of Tool and A Perfect Circle.
Keenan and his output for Tool and A Perfect Circle has always been sporadic, but highly anticipated, and with Tool and A Perfect Circle releasing albums in 2019 and 2018 respectively the arrival of our May curated album was some could say inevitable. So who is Puscifer and where do they sit in MJK’s musical oeuvre? Many have noted them as a joke, or a lighthearted musical exploration, but to do so is to miss the real meaning behind the band which is a vehicle for musical exploration outside of the confines of each of its member's previous work.
Puscifer as a group is a swinging door of musicians with the exception of 3 core members who now make up the band, including MJK, Carina Round, and Mat Mitchell (A Perfect Circle). Some of the band's previous collaborators have included Brad Wilk & Tim Commerford (Rage Against The Machine), Paul Barker (Ministry), and Jon Theodore (Queens Of The Stone Age/Bright Eyes), with the current collaborators including Greg Edwards (Failure), Gunnar Olsen, and Sarah Jones (NYPC). This revolving lineup allows for musical expression throwing irregularity, humour, and improvisation into a melting pot of hugely talented musicians who play and stretch themselves while churning out hugely entertaining and amazing music.
On Existential Reckoning, Puscifer offers up another merry-go-round of electro-arty rock tunes, at times comparable to early ‘80s new wave with vocals and guitar providing the melodic side of things. Puscifer proves to be a thoroughly interesting listen as heard on such early album cuts as “Bread and Circus” and “Apocalyptical” — the latter of which does a swell job of combining both Keenan’s and Round’s vocals.
Throughout, synth abounds, atmospheric, and driving. Songs like “The Underwhelming” are brilliant electro-pop works, mixing robotic, Human League-ish keys with seedy, greasy guitar moments, before switching for a more languid groove, and then back again. It’s difficult not to get caught up in the album's tracks which at times are as spacious and open as the Arizona desert in which it was born.
Mitchell and Round take Puscifer’s sound to extraterrestrial new heights, Puscifer has never shied away from funky, but here they create an unparalleled texture of rhythm and sound. Take “Grey Area 5.1” Existential Reckoning’s fourth track which sonically, feels like a gothic club banger with its slow build of hard-hitting beats that recall moments from Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile, and in which Maynard sings of ‘An age of confusion’, which, in all honesty, could be talking about almost any time, but coming during the Covid pandemic feels especially haunting.
The beauty of Puscifer and especially here on Existential Reckoning is that they can be taken any way you feel, depending on how you look at them. The music on Existential Reckoning is superb, but should you attempt to get under its skin and solve the lyrical puzzles within, there are vast riches to be had. You’ll never totally figure them out, but Puscifer remains a truly delightful mystery that is sometimes best left unsolved.
We hope you enjoy this underrated album as much as we do.
All the best.
Stu
RRC
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