WATCH: Puscifer Shares First New Music in Five Years with “Apocalyptical” Video

Maynard James Keenan revives another project after hinting at new music on social media.
WATCH: Puscifer Shares First New Music in Five Years with “Apocalyptical” Video

Maynard James Keenan revives another project after hinting at new music on social media.

Words: Kim March

May 08, 2020

Perhaps feeling like things are getting a little too “apocalyptical,” Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan has revived his hardly classifiable Puscifer moniker for the first time since 2015 for a single called “Apocalyptical.” The revival, of course, comes on the heels of Tool’s 2019 LP Fear Inoculum, their first since 2006. 

“Apocalyptical” arrives via Alchemy Recordings, a new venture listing all of Keenan’s past releases as Puscifer, which launched in partnership with BMG. The thumping electronic single gets set to footage of large groups of people wearing facemasks and someone skateboarding through an abandoned downtown Los Angeles in a hazmat suit—you know, normal 2020 stuff. The single is presumably the first from a yet-to-be-announced fourth LP slated for the fall.

“Manipulated information disseminated by kings, queens, dictators, so called leaders, supposed professionals or outliers and conspiracy theorists living underground, or in basements, is not new or unique to this generation,” Keenan shares of the single. “Misdirection is Power Struggles’ conjoined twin but the speed at which it now travels in this digital age is dangerous and destructive on many levels. This rapid distribution of poison and its immediate impact will be the hallmark of our generation. Even In light of all this, and all the noise the digital landscape generates, all I keep asking myself is ‘what is it with the whole hoarding toilet paper thing?’”

“‘Apocalyptical’ was one of the very first musical ideas for the new record that we put our voices on out in Arizona in late 2019,” adds Carina Round, who shares vocal duty with Keenan on the track. “It was simultaneously very fresh and also felt like we had never been apart.”