A Perfect Circle, Primus and Puscifer perform together during their Sessanta Tour concert at Rady Shell in San Diego, Calif. on April 18, 2024. Derek Tobias/STAFF. BERKELEY — There’s a variety of ways to spend a milestone birthday. You can take a trip, for example, or get together with…

Puscifer, “Existential Reckoning: Rewired.” While Existential Reckoning: Rewired is a remix album for Puscifer, that definition doesn’t totally capture the scale of the project. The band recruited friends to completely break down and reassemble the dozen tracks of Existential Reckoning in an entirely new way. The guest list is a who’s who of…

Tool performs at Chase Center in San Francisco on Jan. 16, 2022. Nathan McKinley/STAFF. SAN FRANCISCO — The slow-burn evolution of the opening song by Tool Sunday night at Chase Center was in some ways a microcosm of the band’s full set. “Fear Inoculum” opens with a single repeating percussion…

Puscifer, Courtesy: Travis Shinn The shroud of mystery surrounding experimental rock outfit Puscifer is fitting for the uncertain and unsettling times of a pandemic crossed with mass civil unrest. The band, whose core is made up of Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle), Carina Round and Mat Mitchell,…

SACRAMENTO — Tool is an aberration in the modern music landscape. Every choice the L.A. band makes seems to counter conventional wisdom and trend. Many of the band’s songs cross the 10-minute mark with brooding instrumentals. A decade passed between albums. At concerts, enigmatic frontman Maynard James Keenan spends…

Tool, “Fear Inoculum.” Tool has a distinct advantage of desaturation. The band established a sound beyond duplication, released a handful of well-received albums, and then went silent for 13 years. Fiercely progressive yet entrancingly visceral, the quartet played by its own rules since day one—which apparently extends into its…