It's been three years since Billy Corgan and his not-actually-reunited Smashing Pumpkins released Zeitgeist, a viciously heavy reunion record, all medicine and no sugar. If that record soured the public on the idea of a Smashing Pumpkins reunion for good, Corgan has nobody but himself to blame, but to his credit he's spent the years since trying to win back fans' trust with a series of low-key releases much more palatable than Zeitgeist. The Pumpkins' 2008 American Gothic EP stripped away the nasty electric guitars for a kinder, more acoustic set, and the new Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, Vol. 1 Songs for a Sailor EP, the first in a planned series of 11, finds Corgan returning to the massive, orchestral ambitions of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. These four showy prog-folk tunes seem to come to Corgan more easily than most anything he's attempted in a decade, and though there's no bona fide gold here, there's enough promise to suggest there could be some on the horizon.
In bigger '90s rock news this week, Stone Temple Pilots release their first new album in nearly a decade, though "new" is a relative termthere's a lot of recycling on this self-titled record. The chorus of "Dare if You Dare" is the spitting image of Mott the Hoople's "All The Young Dudes," while the bridge of album opener "Between the Lines" is lifted straight from Nirvana's "Stay Away." (The album is temporarily streaming on Spinner.com.)
Other new releases this week include full lengths from Marc Anthony, Widespread Panic, Keller Williams, Tha Dogg Pound, Keller Williams and Hank Williams III, whose new disc flaunts a typically bad-ass title: The Rebel Within.
