No one has ever accused Puscifer of being a “normal” band. After all, this is a band who’ve always treated normality like a dare rather than a destination. With Normal Isn’t, their first new album in more than five years, the shape shifting project led by Maynard James Keenan alongside Mat Mitchell and Carina Round digs fully into that philosophy. 

Normal Isn’t draws deep from the post-punk DNA that rattled the members’ formative years. But this isn’t an exercise in looking back to influences, this is a record that forces itself into darker, heavier terrain, with guitars sharpened to a serrated edge and rhythms that stalk rather than stroll. Songs like “Self Evident” and “Pendulum” coil with tension, while “ImpetuoUs” snaps and snarls, all with Puscifer’s trademark sense of theatrical control. Even at their most aggressive, the band never abandons atmosphere; every track feels staged, lit, and costumed in sound.

That sense of staging becomes literal in Normal Isn’t: Puscifer Live at The Pacific Stock Exchange, an accompanying performance film capturing the album’s first-ever live presentation. Shot inside Los Angeles’ original stock exchange, an art deco monolith rumored to be among the city’s most haunted buildings, the setting feels less like a venue and more like a character. Granite walls loom, shadows stretch, and history seems to hum along with every note.

The film documents a full reset for Puscifer’s live identity. New costumes, a reimagined stage design, and a graphic-heavy light show transform the space into something between a ritual and a broadcast from an alternate timeline. As “Bad Wolf” echoes through the cavernous interior, Keenan, Round, and Mitchell are joined by Gunnar Olsen and Josh Moreau, delivering a performance that’s unapologetically strange. Carina Round’s vocals cut through with fire and grace, while Keenan shifts personas with the ease of someone who has such his entire life.