Not too long ago, Maynard James Keenan upheld something of a personal tradition. It’s one he enacts when an album he has been working on is finally finished.“I always set up a little party: just add alcohol,” he quips of his ritual playback. “It’s not rea

lly a focus group, but it’s my friends who’ve done it before so they know to just shut up and take it in. That’s my process of letting go, it’s like a wake.”

As ...