Normal Isn't

“I think it’s time, experience, fire and brimstone.” That’s what Puscifer leader Maynard James Keenan says when asked why Puscifer’s fifth album might be their most accomplished yet. “Our first record was 2007, so it’s been about 20 years of finding our way with each other and figuring out what works and what doesn’t.” On Normal Isn’t, Keenan and his bandmates Carina Round (vocals/synths) and Mat Mitchell (guitar/bass/synths) join forces with bassist Greg Edwards (Failure, Autolux) and drummers Gunnar Olsen (Bruce Springsteen, Miley Cyrus) and Sarah Jones (Harry Styles, Bloc Party) to create an album that’s part punk, part goth, and a full-throated commentary on the times we’re living in. “Humanity is losing touch with itself,” Keenan tells Apple Music. “The dopamine addiction is strong, and no solutions are presented. It’s just argument upon argument to the point of violence. Whoever said, ‘May you live in interesting times,’ well, fuck that guy. Give me back the boring times.” Below, he comments on each track. “Thrust” “My bandmates and I have a knack for being able to take an odd time signature and, as [TOOL guitarist] Adam [Jones] says, ‘taming it’. Once you dig in, you don’t even notice it’s not in 4/4. The way Mat laid down the initial set of sounds, it’s like Slint meets Massive Attack meets some of my favourite groovy hip-hop stuff where it’s almost going back to Motown and some of the cocaine-driven disco funk. The storyline is ‘please give me this trance because every time I pick up my phone it’s dragging me into this awful, polarised parallel universe of everybody screaming at each other’.” “Normal Isn’t” “Mat came up with an initial groove that transported me back to my youth with some of my favourite influences, and how I felt driving around in the car with friends. But when you’re back to driving around with your friends, you’re usually trying to get away from whatever’s happening in your life at home, the bullies at school and all these things tha