Zeitgeist by the Smashing Pumpkins

I bought Zeitgeist by the (new) Smashing Pumpkins at the same time with War Stories by Unkle but I was a bit skeptical about blogging about it immediately.

It was mainly the fact that two out of the four original members, James and D' Arcy were not part of the reunion, a fact that alienated many more fans. The truth though is that D'Arcy hasn't been in the public eye since the Pumpkins' reunion and James, well... (as Corgan says) he allegedly didn't even say goodbye to the others when they parted after their last show in 2000.

But enough about this; it's all about the record, Zeitgeist. In the beginning I thought it was a little blunt but after a lot of listening, I have now reached the conclusion that it is really a very strong record. Technically, it was supposed to be a re-introduction of the Pumpkins to the new masses as Billy said in their YouTube channel, SmashingPumpkinsMilitia. This automatically meant that they wouldn't really introduce something new in their material. That was a little bit worrying for me seeing that TheFutureEmbrace, Corgan's solo album, didn't impress me that much. But Zeitgeist is not TheFutureEmbrace, and thank God, it's better than MACHINA!



It rocks... Jimmy proved that he's the best drummer I know in modern rock bands, the new members seem to have integrated extremely well and Billy is in form. Some songs though, luck the power he once commanded. For example, "United States" which is fantastic musically, looses a lot of it's power in its chorus and his performance lets down the song. Still, my personal favourites is "Neverlost" and "7 Shades of Black". I know many people said that they are not relevant as they used to, but WHO CARES? They rock, HARD.

I also saw them play in the BBC live in the Leeds & Reading Festival. They were pretty good, Jimmy was amazingly cool considering his drumming but Billy missed some guitar solos. All in all, I wanted to be there too!

They were also supposed to go to Athens too, but given the fires their show was canceled. But as Ginger says in Billy's blog, they enjoyed the Parthenon and some even went to Delphi and they were really impressed! The photo of Billy in the Ancient Agora is priceless ;). I hope to see them live one day, they are one of my favourite bands that I wasn't able to see live, not even in 1997 when they came to Athens and I was preparing to give an exam on Thermodynamics... Lame...

I WANT TO SEE THEM LIVE!