Puscifer

A far cry from his day job in Tool, Puscifer finds front-man Maynard Keenan working through a solo project that has about as much positive impact on listeners as a fart in a church pew. Obtuse and placid, the most interesting piece of V Is For Vagina just happens to be the name. An endless stream of low-key, rhythm-oriented music, the majority of tracks here utilise a moderate electronic foundation akin to A Perfect Circle but are nowhere near as interesting or creative. Synthesised beats and acoustic guitars feel almost psychedelic behind Keenan’s vocal delivery, itself quite subdued and throaty as opposed to his trademark nasal-ness. This either means he’s striving to be even more mystical or he knows it’s not a good idea to be tagged on this bloated piece of crap. Many of the songs that make up V Is For Vagina have a feel of being influenced and roughly removed from Electriclarryland-era Butthole Surfers — a time when weirdness was not explicitly embraced but still quite prevalent. To continue the analogy though, the end result is more akin to the Surfers’ Weird Revolution: trying too hard and falling dead flat.