Puscifer
"V" Is For Vagina

THE REVIEW

Yet another project by Maynard James Keenan (I'm not going to tell you who he is and what he's done because it's more depressing for me to write than for you to read) but as long as he creates music at high levels like he has for the last fifteen years, he's allowed to be even more ubiquitous than Alba Parietti.

An album that suffers from performance anxiety since the standards to which one inevitably refers are really too high, and at this point, I think of a poem we study in school where the wait is what is truly savored because the excessive illusion of a five-star album has given way to disappointment. In fact, there had already been talk of this project with the past release of some tracks and the launch of the official website that for over a year has left us longing for this work. Moreover, one can understand more about Maynard's thinking through his posts and buy Puscifer-branded clothing online. Some argue that the Puscifer project is fundamentally a joke by Maynard himself, using the choice of irony and eccentric intellectualism as an intentional act on his part to justify the pale quality of the tracks, but in my opinion, it is still an album with many shortcomings, and the artist's intentions, when the songs do not fully satisfy concretely, are just passing whispers.

Many guests, but their presences are almost useless: Tim Alexander, Gil Sharone, Rani Sharone, Brian Lustmord, Mat Mitchell, Jonny Polonsky, Ainjel Emme, Jarboe, Alessandro Cortini, Josh Eustis.

The single "Queen B" is a sum of choruses, and the result is a lounge track that is redundant like "Dozo," which does not fully satisfy despite Maynard having one of the most beautiful voices ever, but often this alone is not enough, especially in an electronic music work.

The unsuccessful result of the album is also due to the tracks "Rev 22:20" (Michael Bublé would have sung it better, and I've said enough) and "The Undertaker" previously released in close collaboration with Danny Lohner in the two soundtracks of Underworld, which sounded more industrial and had decidedly misled me. Here they are less convincing than the originals; "Vagina Mine," clearly inspired by trip-hop, "Trekka" definable as an assembly line of sound, and "Momma Sed" are the best pieces where some flashes of genius are perceived but not exploited to the fullest, leaving that sense of incompleteness and expectation in the ears of those who listen. "Indigo Children" and "Sour Grapes" push my patience to the limit perhaps because I expect the songs to evolve from the flatness of the ready-to-pass electronic shocks to a higher level, but the wait is not satisfied.

Who writes this review is a great admirer of the artist, but this time Maynard did not try hard enough and gave us something that resembles background music, and even if there had been no natural comparison with previous musical experiences, this "Vagina" would still have remained disposable.