Maynard James Keenan’s Puscifer have released their first new material in five years, with a video clip and new single for ‘Apocalyptical’. It also looks like there’s a Puscifer record in the works as well, following recent releases from Keenan’s other bands; Tool and A Perfect Circle.
The new tune we’ve been gifted is, as the name suggests, inspired by the coronavirus outbreak. ‘Apocalyptical’ is an eerie number, full of dissonant tones and featuring lyrics about a world that’s damned with lyrics including “They won’t believe you until it’s far too late”, and “Go on moron, ignore the evidence”.
It’s a thinly veiled swipe at Keenan’s fellow Americans who’ve been turning up in droves to protest lockdown measures, unwittingly spreading the virus in doing so.
The new single follows a few bits and pieces that have popped up on the band’s socials recently. First a snippet of new music appeared on Puscifer’s Instagram with the caption “Doin Stuff. More details to follow this weekend.
Then we got a spinning album sleeve with the caption ‘Round 2 of The Teasing’, with the hashtags #puscifer2020 and #soon. According to Loudwire, representatives for the band have confirmed a record will be released in 2020.
The tune has dropped with a dystopian video clip featuring Keenan and vocalist Carina Round, who also sings on the track, both wearing dark trenchcoats, sunglasses and red lipstick.
It also follows the journey of a skateboarder moving through a locked-down city, dressed in a full hazmat suit. Later in the clip, he jumps on a motorbike and cruises through the eerily quiet streets.
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Maynard James Keenan spoke with Zane Lowe about the structural process behind the song in a recent chat. “…we’re very organized and Mat [Mitchell] is very goal-oriented, is very emotional and very artistic and he gets in his head space and he goes down the rabbit holes in great ways, but he also can come up for a breath of fresh air and we can go, ‘OK, we have all these ideas,” he said.
“You’ve been going crazy with all these amazing things in this folder. I’m going to go through the folder, I’m going to look for some things in there.
“We’re going to start messing around and then we’re going to set a goal.’ If I come up with a certain number of these things, if I come up with 60 percent or 70 percent of what we would use for an album, if I can come up with that by this date, then we start the clock ticking.”
Check out ‘Apocalyptical’ by Puscifer:
