During their heyday, the Smashing Pumpkins captured the roller coaster ride of adolescence — with all its beautiful urgency and angst. They captured the freedom of knowing that your curfew wasn’t for another few hours. To a similar extent, Billy Corgan’s new band, Zwan, carries on this legacy.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of low album sales and disappointing reviews, Corgan has returned to once again reclaim his throne as an alt-rock virtuoso. With the release of the group’s first album, “Mary Star of the Sea,” Corgan is reborn as Billy Burke and is joined by part-time Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. Chavez’s Matt Sweeney, Paz Lenchantin of A Perfect Circle
and Dave Pajo from the bands Slint and Papa M.
Although comparing Zwan to the Pumpkins is inevitable, it’s also
futile, and it will only prevent
the listener from fully enjoying
the album.
Tuning into the poppy,
optimistic radio-friendly single ‘Honestly’ is a stark reminder of Corgan’s trademark alley cat
vocals. The chord progressions too are familiar — Corgan receives most of the songwriting credit.
However, Pajo’s incredible talent is a new addition. His touch is at its finest about five and a half minutes into the track “Jesus, I / Mary Star of the Sea.” Each note is heavy like ether, until Chamberlin picks up the beat and Corgan starts singing, “And everything just feels like rain / the road we’re on / the things we crave … if I should sleep / what’s left to dream.”
Other standout tracks include the ballad “Of a Broken Heart” and “Settle Down,” which is filled with classic Pumpkins guitar riffs.
The music floats painlessly from the speaker to the ear, but the songs fail to stay with the listener for longer than the duration of the album. “Mary Star of the Sea” is none of the artists’ best work.
Although the release lacks some edge, when compared to what has been poisoning the airwaves
the past few years, it is a small beam of hope.