Alternative music, cult films, and pop culture explored through a Gen X lens — with reviews, interviews, and a deep-dive podcast.
Album Review: Puscifer – Normal Isn’tFeb 6/Puscifer Entertainment / Alchemy Recordings / BMG More than two decades into its existence, and closer to a quarter-century if you trace its earliest incarnations, Puscifer has quietly become Maynard James Keenan’s most prolific and responsive creative outlet. Where Tool moves with tectonic patience and A Perfect Circle operates […]
Concert Review: Tool at Moody Center, Austin: L.A. prog-metal icons show their enduring power over potent set. “Be present.” That was the mantra and conditional agreement that Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan requested from the rabid Austin crowd that gathered at Moody Center Wednesday evening marking their first Austin appearance since pre-pandemic 2020. The crotchety […]
Puscifer “Existential Reckoning: Rewired”: Review-inventive album offers intriguing remixes from Maynard James Keeenan fronted 2020 album. Remix albums are a curious beast. Some are essential, adding new dimensions to established songs. Others are filler, offering excessive, bloated renditions that undermine the power of the original material. So where does Puscifer’s new remix album Existential Reckoning: Rewired […]
Concert Review: Puscifer at Bass Concert Hall, Austin: Maynard James Keenan’s art-music collective channels and parodies modern angst in explosive performance. Puscifer are a hard act to quantify, their mix of electronic tinged rock/comedy troupe/performance art is unconfined, elastic and multi-dimensional. And while their discography is formidable, the project formed by Tool / A Perfect […]
The Best Alternative Rock and Metal Albums of 2020: 13 of the best releases from a year that needed great music more than ever. What more can be said about the shit-show that was 2020? It’s been awful, exhausting, demoralizing, harrowing, maddening and relentless. But despite that, we found ways to adapt, some by sidestepping […]
Puscifer ‘Existential Reckoning’ Review: Maynard James Keenan’s experimental trio perfectly encapsulates the WTFness of 2020. Maynard James Keenan has been on quite the prolific roll the last two years, releasing long awaited albums from both A Perfect Circle and Tool. And now he’s back with Existential Reckoning, the latest from Puscifer, his experimental multimedia project […]
A Perfect Circle ‘Eat The Elephant’ Review: APC defy expectations with understated, reflective comeback album. [rating=4] The last time A Perfect Circle released an album, it was 2004’s Emotive, a political protest album (featuring unorthodox cover songs), railing against an unpopular republican president and a divided electorate. The group return 14 years later with Eat The […]
Concert Review: A Perfect Circle at HEB Center: reconstituted alt-rock veterans cranked out an elegant, atmospheric set in Austin, TX. [rating=5] It’s been six years since A Perfect Circle toured North America, and nearly 14 years since their last album. But as their well received, stellar set at Austin/Cedar Park’s HEB Center proved, absence has only made the […]
Book Review: A Perfect Union of Contrary Things By Maynard James Keenan and Sarah Jensen: Tool frontman offers illuminating snapshots of his past in new autobiography. [rating=4] When one thinks “enigmatic rock star,” one of the first that comes to mind is Maynard James Keenan. The frontman of Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer has […]
SLIS’s 15 Best Rock Albums of 2015: the best metal and alternative rock albums of the year. Last week I covered the 25 best rock songs of 2015, and now it’s time to celebrate the best albums of the year. As always I pride myself on sticking to rock oriented releases in a sea of pop nonsense, […]
