Artist: Greg Puciato
Album: Mirrorcell
Label: Federal Prisoner
Release Date: 04/02/2022
Location: Los Angeles, California
Written by Brian Lloyd
The first time I heard Miss Machine by The Dillinger Escape plan it changed my life. I liked Dillinger beforehand but Puciato turned it into a whole different animal. When they broke up I was devastated. Then I heard The Black Queen and again Puciato changed me all over again. From one extreme to the other his work has affected me emotionally and the sound of his voice is just part of my tastes. Mirrorcell is everything that Puciato has ever tried to be. Emotional, sincere, and captivating.
There is something totally and perfectly raw about this record. Even more so than the aforementioned The DIllinger Escape plan which Puciato dedicated his career to for over 2 decades. This album is like an open wound just waiting for someone to pour salt into. Every word, and every scream so carefully calculated and yet somehow almost free from structure leaving it feeling open and up for interpretation.
Puciato’s previous solo work “Child Soldier: Creator of God” was a brilliant but albeit messy album filled with ideas and disjointed songs that almost sounded like a compilation of years of different moods and emotions. Mirrorcell feels like an album that belongs together, each song sounds like it belongs together, with the exception of “We” a song that would have been more at home on The Black Queen than anywhere else.
“No More Lives to Go” sounds like a post-grunge crooning single digging in deep emotionally and charging with perfect vocal pitch and screams that harken back to the days of Alice in Chains. “Lowered” featuring female vocalist Reba Meyers of Code Orange just plain kicks ass. Both vocalists are not even kind of mailing it in at all. “Never Wanted That” shows a softer side of the 90’s alternative feel and “We” a perfect 80’s Synthwave sounding number round out the slab of perfect songs displayed here.Mirrorcell is unbelievable. From the first moment I put it on I knew something special was about to happen and as the record progressed all that happened was that Greg Puciato proves that he is one of the best vocalists in heavy music right now and he isn’t getting the respect he deserves.
Listen to and order the album:
