Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 09/07/07
Label: Martha's Music/Reprise

You suspect the heaviest irony must be at play in the toe-curlingly pretentious title of Smashing Pumpkins' sixth studio album, but then you remember that Billy Corgan is a self-consciously anguished, lemon-sucking advocate of the importance of "really meaning it". He doubtless believes that his unique understanding alone can distil the spirit of our troubled times and commit it to plastic - while kicking maximum ass, of course.

Still, there's no denying the potency of the Pumpkins' legacy - echoing now more strongly than ever before in young American bands from The Icarus Line to My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy - nor the fact that their angst-drenched and fuzz-heavy, metal-tipped, grunge-pop formula surfaced in a clutch of winning singles: "Cherub Rock"; "Bullet With Butterfly Wings"; "Disarm"; "Today"; and "1979". However, their reappearance in 2007 - after the dissolution of Zwan and Corgan's frankly underwhelming solo effort - rather begs the question: why?

Only drummer Jimmy Chamberlain remains from the old-school Pumpkins line-up, but Corgan hasn't much changed his tune(s). "It's lonely at the top", he complains on the opener in his distinctive, nasal whine, which is odd, considering the fact that he hasn't been there for a good decade and he visits familiar heartache territory with "That's The Way (My Love Is)", while borrowing the swarming guitar sound of Bowie's "Heroes". Elsewhere, though, Corgan's concerns are patently external - a hypocritical and corrupt, war-mongering America has lost its way and is sending us all to hell in a hand cart, seems to be the message of "Doomsday Clock", "United States" and "For God And Country".

"Zeitgeist" may not boast any platinum-plated singles of the kind that typified their peak, but it's mercifully far less flatulent than latter-day Pumpkins. Lead single, "Tarantula" welds Queen's engorged pop to nu-metal's pummelling power and adds twin guitar harmonics, "Starz" suggests that it's 1992 and grunge stills rules the world (albeit having admitted a dash of neo-prog), "United States" briefly aligns them with Queens Of The Stone Age" and "Pomp And Circumstance" is the album's curio, a strings-augmented mix of Spiritualized, Prince, Queen (again) and (more) Bowie which closes proceedings on a note both sombre and hopeful.

There have certainly been less creditable comeback albums than this, but the sound of "Zeitgeist" echoes the past. Corgan's concerns may be contemporary, but his soundtrack simply doesn't match.

    by Sharon O'Connell