англоязычные обзоры:

IGN, Puscifer - V Is For Vagina Review

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A disc as enigmatic as its front-man.
by Christopher Monfette


October 29, 2007 - As a fan of any single band or vocalist, it's a rewarding experience to watch something you love continue to evolve creatively. Too seldom in music today does an artist truly grow from project to project, creating a musical arena in which your NIN's and Radiohead's are the largely the exception and rarely the rule. That singer, songwriter, performance-artist and wine-maker Maynard James Keenan has evolved not only through his most notable outlet (Tool) or a side-project (A Perfect Circle) - but is now flexing his solo muscle with a third facet (Puscifer) - is truly a sight to see…or, rather, a sound to behold.

Tool fans who have been with the band from the very beginning can attest to Maynard's mastery lyrical range - from the rock-n-roll roar to the shrill scream of rage to the melodic, soft-toned styling of the band's third-eye epic rock ballads. Those who have followed Keenan over to A Perfect Circle can pay witness to his more ethereal side - a malleable, moody and strangely moving vocal performance that sustained two (arguably more mainstream) albums. Unfortunately, fans expecting to hear Keenan consolidate this wide-ranging vocal performance onto a single album are going to find Puscifer's first project - the bizarrely titled V is for Vagina - an almost forgettable disappointment.



Those who appreciate the complex, nearly spiritual arrangements of the modern Tool album - or those who simply like to lay back and enjoy the simple, yet strongly-constructed tracks of A Perfect Circle - aren't going to find any mixture of those two elements here. Rather, V is for Vagina places Keenan on a brooding, low-key growl and keeps him there for ten tracks - two of which ("The Undertaker" and "Rev. 22:20") are strangely less-enjoyable remixes of previously released songs. Gone are the soaring (and dare one say) soothing high notes. Gone is the soul-stirring anger of the man who screamed out five minutes of throat-splitting venom on tracks such as "Ticks and Leeches."

What we get, instead, is an artist playing in a generally subdued sandbox that seems more confining than creatively freeing. It's likely not an album that you'll find yourself singing alone to - or, in a sense, even acknowledging. This is a disc best suited to long drives on grey days - full of atmosphere and little else. From first-track to last, the album establishes a tone that is almost painfully mellow. Moody back-beats and haunted-house piano keys - with a dash of electric and a splash of country - build a record that plays at the very back of your skull, pushing your head back and forth in slow, absent bob - as opposed to those records that wring out inside your brain as synapses fire and lyrics tumble from your lips.

There are a few memorable tracks, however. "Queen B" is a nice - through oddly-written - track that plays like a cross between the music one would hear in any R&B club and the soundtrack to your local Hot Topic. "Dozo" has a kind of post-apocalyptic country-and-western feel with Keenan doing his best Marilyn Manson impression. The track breaks suddenly about half-way through into a Beasties-inspired back-beat and circles back into the World War CMT territory by the end. This feeling is semi-replicated with "Momma Sed" - using a few acoustic guitar strings along with a basic beat - to constitute the one song on the album that feels most connected to what we've heard from Keenan before.

The remixes of "The Undertaker" and "Rev. 22:20" devolve the songs into the broader, brooding tone of the album itself, making what were once eminently sing-able and thoroughly melodic tracks into slower, muddled musical mirrors of themselves. This isn't to say that these remixes are "bad," so much as it is to say that having enjoyed their previous iterations, these newer and less accessible presentations are a harder sell. Lastly, "Indigo Children" adds a kind of tribal, electronic flare that gives a track that might otherwise sound largely like every other track on the album a greater level of depth.

Overall, V is for Vagina comes across as an incredibly unfocused and audibly claustrophobic piece. Keenan's vocal range (possibly his finest quality) is almost completely gone; the lyrics range from dim and depressing to almost childish; and worse, the songs all play at the same level, never once rising or falling to guide the listener through a coherent experience. This is a collection of tracks, created piecemeal with various producers, tossed onto an album in the way that most resembles an actual creative effort. Sadly, however, the individual components fail to tie into one another in a way that makes them feel like a complete and tangible work of art.

It's not good - nor is it bad. It's atmospheric background music - which, for an artist like Keenan, may be the worse sin of all.

Download Worthy

1. "Queen B."
2. "Momma Sed"
3. "Indigo Children"

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