Tool fans are a ravenous bunch, perhaps because they have to wait so long between albums. Any new material from the band’s voice, Maynard James Keenan, then is readily lapped up. In the past, he has managed to pass the time between his main band’s output with his side project, A Perfect Circle, but even that stopped back in 2004. So what’s been occupying his creative energy? Enter Puscifer.

An on-off collaboration of little fruition, Puscifer was little more than a mythic association until Keenan and Danny Lohner (Nine Inch Nails) contributed a couple of tracks to the soundtracks for the vampire-bothering Underworld movies. Now at last, is an album of full material to back the moniker, in essence Keenan and a variety of collaborators.

Provocation, it seems, is as important to Puscifer as Keenan’s explorations of far-flung styles from metal and rock. As if the album title wasn’t enough, the digipak artwork is in the style of a brutally satirical airline pamphlet – if you’ve seen Fight Club, you get the idea. Tracks such as “Vagina Mine” and “Dozo”’s gun sampling continue the trend.

The ten tracks here are the perfect soundtrack to a night drive down a long highway, a mix of murky dub and layers of Keenan’s distinctive growl and chanting. The guitar riffage of his day job are traded for drum loops and percussion. The resulting effect is a hypnotic groove that rarely breaks tone during its fifty minutes.

“The Undertaker” provides some relieving stop start dynamics, but otherwise the only major shifts in mood are in Keenan’s character work. While he is undoubtedly one of rock music’s most talented figureheads, it seems he is in a somewhat relaxed and playful mood here - parodying rappers on the sparse acoustics of “Momma Sed” or an indignant evangelist on “Sour Grapes.”

Despite its rebellious artistic sentiments sheathed in slickly black humour, Puscifer is a work for completists only. Its satirical rewards can get lost in the thrum of its mood and will only reveal itself to those willing to pay attention. But hey, at least it’s a great stopgap till the next Tool album.

Rating: 3/5