Donkey Punch The Night, the
latest EP from Maynard James Keenan's Puscifer project, is a mixed
bag of an EP and your enjoyment of it will undoubtedly vary from
listener to listener. Some fans will be drawn to the pair of covers,
others the pair of original tracks, others the quartet of remixes,
and others still bits and pieces from each category. It is becoming
clear that this is, at best, a challenging release.
The pair of covers come from very
different ends of Puscifer spectrum. Album opener 'Bohemian Rhapsody'
(by “you know who”) is alarming for a very simple reason. No,
there are no dick jokes thrown in, no absurd rapping, and there are
certainly no dubstep drops. It is alarming in how faithful to the
original material this version is. Maynard pulls off a good Freddie
Mercury impersonation here with enough grit to not sound like a
pointless clone cover. On the other end is 'Balls to the Wall',
originally played by 80s German metallers Accept. This is treated as
though it was one of Puscifer's own – that's right no blistering
guitar solos, just some mid-tempo post-industrial chug accentuated by
Carina Round's spooky backing vocals. In fact I dare people not
familiar to the original version to pick it as a cover at all.
Donkey Punch The Night's new
tracks are probably a little closer to the expectations of the
audience. 'Dear Brother' is perfectly serviceable but pails in
comparison to 'Breathe'. This song just screams “hear me played
live” and will no doubt be flooring live crowds for some time to
come. Then there are the remixes. The new songs fare rather well as
their remixes are just alternative versions of the songs; you can
still see the familiar bone structure and the hooks remain largely
intact. The covers do not bode so well as they are mutilated pretty
much beyond recognition and are largely instrumental workouts. Many
cover songs simply transplant the lyrics of one song into the music
of the band performing it. In this state they are still recognizable
as covers. It feels disingenuous to even refer to 'Balls to the Wall
(Silent Servant's El Guapo mix)' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody (Sonoio
Remix)' as covers in the way they are presented.
So what can you make of this divisive
new EP? A better question is, what kind of Puscifer fan are you?
Rating: B-
Recommended tracks: 'Dear Brother',
'Breathe' (Ed: but then I'm the sort of fan biased towards the new
songs)
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