Well, It's Better Than Another Billy Corgan Solo Album...
Written: Jul 09 '07
Product Rating:
Pros: they're back to rocking, great artwork, a catchy enough rock record
Cons: reunion records never live up to the hype, this one is no different
The Bottom Line: Zeitgeist is a take it or leave it album. Longtime fans will want to check it out, but new listeners would be best served finding the old records.
MattA75's Full Review: Zeitgeist by The Smashing Pumpkins
When Billy Corgan took out an ad a couple of years back proclaiming that he "wanted his band back," I couldn't help but laugh. This was a guy who broke up his band (Smashing Pumpkins) because he felt he couldn't compete with the Britneys of the world (ok, so that was just the public explanation, but still). His first post Pumpkins project imploded before long (though I still think Zwan was better than anything the Pumpkins put out post 1995), and his first solo album was met with lukewarm reviews at best. So, naturally, he now wants to reclaim his rock and roll glory, so he called up drummer Jimmy Chamberlain and got some new members and resurrected the Pumpkins name.
Zeitgeist is the first album released under the Pumpkins moniker since 2000, and only Corgan and Chamberlain remain from the original lineup. Not surprisingly, Corgan doesn't fool around with the electronic blips and beeps that came to define the band's sound starting with 1995's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Instead, much of the record is awash in layers of electric guitar, with the steady, pounding backbeat of Chamberlain's drumming and Corgan's vocals being the other main elements.
Zeitgeist surely features the year's best album artwork, but sadly, it says a lot more than Corgan has to say. Sure, he talks about the end of days on songs like Doomsday Clock, but for the most part, lyrically, this isn't Corgan's strongest bunch of songs.
Make no mistake though; the main point of Zeitgeist is in it's sonic structure. People got tired of Smashing Pumpkins because they wanted them to rock and Corgan resisted and went in an entirely different direction. And Zeitgeist certainly rocks.
First single Tarantula is a blazing four minutes of guitar histrionics, while That's the Way (My Love Is) is as close to a classic sounding Pumpkins anthem as there is. Featuring a swirling riff, it sounds like a Zwan outtake, even featuring some of the hope that pervaded those songs. It has a terrific hook and may just be the song to put the band fully back on the pop culture map of America.
Corgan's ambitions do get the best of him here though. Thankfully, it's mostly on one track, the almost 10 minute United States, which features an extended noodling jam in the middle before crashing back in with a metallic like ending jam that takes up the last three minutes of the song.
It's surprising to me how bad the production on some tracks are. The aforementioned Doomsday Clock sounds like it was recorded during Metallica's St Anger sessions, while For God and Country (perhaps the only truly experimental track on the record) sounds murky and unpolished.
Billy has always had a rather big ego, and the closing track only further confirms this fact. Pomp and Circumstance is a 4 minute plus exercise in progressive rock gone awry. It features nothing more than a squealing guitar solo played over a somewhat atmospheric background, while Corgan throws in some occasional "la la las" vocally.
Ultimately, Zeitgeist isn't a bad record, but I hardly think of it as something I'll be reaching for in two years when I want a Smashing Pumpkins fix. It isn't all that ambitious, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, given Corgan's songwriting talents, I would hope that the songs here would reflect the thought provoking artwork. Instead, we get what feels like warmed over leftovers.
Following the demise of the short-lived Zwan and an ill-received solo album (TheFutureEmbrace), singer/guitarist Billy Corgan decided to revive the Sm...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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