Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist (2007)

As one of my favourite bands I had to up this as some point and make some conclusion on it. On first listen I was happy with the album, but saw it as just an okay hard rock album and not necessarily anything more. Of course, as we all know, one brief listen is rarely enough to judge and with time this has grown on me and probably will continue to. In comparison to the other Smashing Pumpkins releases this doesn't have the same groundbreaking sound as previous, but this is a new era with no Pixies, no Nirvana and the rest and therefore how "groundbreaking" it is, should really be put into context. The fact is, there are alot of really poor rock bands out there at the moment that would have probably never made it in the early 90's and against them, Zeitgeist really kicks some ass.
Songwriting is strong, I can imagine "That's the Way" and "Starz" being sung whole heartily at festivals this summer, and Chamberlain still commands his kit like he always did. The first half of the album, in particular, thunders through at terrific pace with "Doomsday Clock" setting the agenda. My main criticism would be that after "United States" the album doesn't seem to be quite up to par with the first half however, that track mentioned is a true rock epic, possibly level with "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans" and its refreshing to hear that Corgan can still produce those magical moments. In conclusion, this isn't Siamese Dream or Gish, but what we do have is a good rock album which shows us how some bands just have "it" and others, polluting our charts at the moment, just don't.

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