By Scott McLennan 

Puscifer is alarmed that so many values, including bedrock rights, are under attack, with real people getting hurt (in some cases killed) in the process.

Normal Isn’t, Puscifer

Returning nearly six years after releasing the alarmist Existential Reckoning, Puscifer delivers an even more dire report on Normal Isn’t, a perfect set of tunes for anyone feeling unmoored by current events and searching for some new “Normal Is.”

For roughly 15 years, Maynard James Keenan, Carina Round, and Mat Mitchell have developed as a creative team, deploying Puscifer on various search-and-satire missions. But at this point the laughter is more nervous, and the stakes seem higher than ever before when it comes to critiquing the repressive order of the day. So many values, including bedrock rights, are under attack, with real people getting hurt (in some cases killed) in the process.

Puscifer does not invoke anyone by name or riff on headlines, but it is impossible to miss the shadow of Trump II in this music, just as it was impossible not to sense the specter of Trump I hovering over Existential Reckoning. And, on this forward-looking record, you won’t find any nostalgia in Normal Isn’t for what transpired culturally, politically, or socially between the Trump presidencies. The song “Pendulum” condemns the ongoing back-and-forth sway through hubris, vainglory, hamartia, certitude, and arrogance that stains both ends of the arc.

In short, regular folks are seemingly caught between corrosive forces. Or, as Puscifer proclaims in the opening track “Thrust,” we’re “stuck here in the middle of all the petty people” and “thrust into the fray.” This would sound a little trite without the sharper retort: “Trying not to murder,/ the daily fuckin’ battle.”

On Normal Isn’t, Puscifer extends and updates the tones and textures used in Existential Reckoning by adding punched-up guitars, more angular rhythms, and woozy, malleable arrangements, which are juxtaposed against synth iciness. In addition to having Puscifer vets Gunnar Olson and Sarah Jones on drums and bassist Greg Edwards, the album features guest spots by King Crimson bassist Tony Levin and Tool drummer Danny Carey.

The overtly goth and punk elements in these Puscifer songs are leaned into, as Keenan and Round weave dynamic vocal parts that aim to create a anarchistic, ‘funhouse’ effect that dramatizes the nation’s moral decay.

Puscifer’s music is part of a larger artistic universe of characters and storylines that Keenan began to develop as a solo freeform art project in 2003. A solid band emerged years later from the experiments in that multimedia process. But the secret agents, flea‑bag hustlers, and holy rollers that populated the Pusciferverse are now on hiatus. In their place, since news of Normal Isn’t started bubbling up last year, Keenan and Round have been appearing as cyberpunk renegades Bellendia Black and Fanny Grey.

Mitchell’s production guidance, along with his guitar and synth playing, gives Puscifer’s fifth album a unique sound—one where songs, while complete, contribute to a record that feels intentionally fractured.

Of the three bands he fronts—Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer—Keenan is most playful when working with Puscifer. As grim as the mood becomes on Normal Isn’t, Keenan draws on piquant wordplay to make his scathing points. When he references “precedence” and “trumpeting,” you know what he’s talking about. And there is little doubt who Keenan and Round’s schoolyard taunts are aimed at: “bunghole” and “walking, talking skid‑mark prat.”

But Puscifer goes beyond ridicule, providing more serious introspection. Is everyone responsible for the horrible predicament we find ourselves in? Why have the “Bad Wolves” triumphed? Explanations are dropped into “A Public Stoning,” a song in which critical thinking is swallowed up by  mentally stagnant echo chambers (“Humming along to your one sided tune”) and “Mantastic,” which upends the social‑media‑fed obsession with toxic masculine vanity.

“Seven One,” regally narrated by Ian Ross, serves as the album’s provocative detour, with its wry look at how symbolism and myth are exploited for the nefarious purposes of the self‑righteous power‑grabbers.

“ImpetuoUs” is the album’s rallying call to arms. While Existential Reckoning‘s closing track promised that everything would eventually come out all right, Normal Isn’t proffers none of that reassurance. In “ImpetuoUs,” Puscifer doesn’t ask for either leaders or followers—just that people who are unafraid of the future be themselves and dance.

Puscifer brings its live show to Boston on April 4 at the Boch Center Wang Theatre.

Scott McLennan covered music for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from 1993 to 2008. He then contributed music reviews and features to The Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and WGBH, as well as to The Arts Fuse. He also operated the NE Metal blog to provide in-depth coverage of the region’s heavy metal scene.