Smashing Pumpkins

Zeitgeist

(Warners) £12.99



Rock resuscitations proliferate. But is there any need for a Smashing Pumpkins album in 2007? The Pumpkins' old rococo stadium goth crown now rests firmly with My Chemical Romance, who have taken detailed notes on the Nineties alterna-rock icons. MCR singer Gerard Way and Billy Corgan look uncannily similar.

Reviving the Pumpkins name reeks of opportunism. Corgan's solo album of 2005 was a commercial non-event. There is likely to be more mileage in this, even though two original Pumpkins, James Iha and D'Arcy Wretzky are replaced by hired hands. Corgan has bristled at accusations he's a dictator, but this one-man band (with drummer Jimmy Chamberlain in tow) confirms a few of them.

Calling an album Zeitgeist opens you up to more accusations. Pretension, for one. Inaccuracy, too. Music in 2007 does not sound like this, a throwback to fudgy, chundering guitars and slacker-era vocals. Corgan presumably wanted to signal his concern for the times with songs like 'United States', 'For God And Country', 'Doomsday Clock' and the striking Shepard Fairey cover image of the Statue Of Liberty rising from the Hudson, floodwater at her knees. A departure, from the inner worlds Corgan charted on the Pumpkins' previous six-odd records.

It's not all apocalyptic news, though. Zeitgeist is a serviceable Pumpkins album, often harnessing Corgan's original grasp of hard rock melodics. It largely does away with a lot of the bloated drivel that marred the band's late period.

In places, it even recalls Mary Star Of The Sea, the only album by Corgan's sorely regretted but excellent side project, Zwan. 'That's The Way (My Love Is)' is a scuffed love song that convincingly flaunts Corgan's bright side, as Zwan did so well. 'Tarantula' stands out as a rattly punkoid anomaly vouching for Corgan's current energy levels. 'United States' is more of a mixed bag. Like a Topshop Che Guevara T-shirt, the sentiments ('Revoloo-shawn!') make you cringe. But as experimental eight-minute Zeppelin-derived drum and guitar workouts go, it's not indulgent.

Calculation aside, Zeitgeist is not really of these times. But it is rare - a tolerable Smashing Pumpkins record, 10 years after their peak.