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Billy Corgan's Zwan zong
By Grant Stoye
Staff Writer
FILE PHOTO
Zwan manages to be scary and fun at the same time.
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“Zwan?” I pondered to myself. “That sounds like the noise a fennec makes.” A fennec is a long-eared African fox, and Zwan, as it turns out, is former Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan’s new band. I previously enjoyed some Pumpkins tunes, but I grew passionately indifferent towards them when Billy went from being the balding rocker from Carol Stream, Ill. to the bald embodiment of art in music. However, this album pleasantly surprised me.
“Mary Star of the Sea” is a rock album, plain and simple. There’s nothing all that artsy about it, which was appealing to me because I just wanted something to listen to, and not wonder why, despite all his rage, he is still just a rat in a cage. The cover art alone was enough to give me a grin, because it featured a retro/vintage style that I fully support. But enough about art-- let’s get to the music.
The CD starts off with the aptly titled “Lyric.” It’s safe to say that the tone of this album is set with the first track. This is a departure from the thought-rock that the Pumpkins had been cranking out towards the end of their run, with Zwan focusing in on an upbeat classic rock sound. It is radio-friendly and poppy in nature, casting off the burdens of Art that were set by Corgan’s previous foray into music. The next track, “Settle Down,” keeps the vibe going, with some hip sounds being produced towards the end of the track. Those two songs seem to represent the CD as a whole. The guitars have a skitchy, retro sound that is thoroughly enjoyable, yet they overshadow the bass on a lot of songs. The drumming is mostly kept simple, with former Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlain giving a solid performance. Although his performance isn’t really spectacular, he really fits this music like a glove.
The next couple tracks follow the eerie trend of sounding like typical radio-friendly love rock songs, which I find funny. “Honestly” is a fan-favorite for the twitter-painted with heartfelt lyrics and a catchy sound that’s sure to permeate the airwaves. “El Sol,” Spanish for “The Sol” (yes, I know “sol” means “sun”…) follows in the same suit, but never in a million, bajillion years would I have anticipated Billy Corgan to utter the word “sunshine” in a song. It cracked me up.
The radio-friendly pop switches gears with my favorite tracks on the album, “Desire” and “Of a Broken Heart.” “Heart” ends the monotony of happy Corgan love songs (I never thought I’d say that) with a beautiful acoustic sound of lamenting love. The guitar solos during the break are just splendid and quite pleasing to hear, and the lyrics mourning a faded love really melted this old softy’s heart. The mellowness is duplicated in “Desire,” which brings to mind a cinematic romantic staple of a happy ending where two characters realize their love with a heartfelt lip lock. I began to notice how depressing the lyrics were (“desire fades away” and “anyone who desires is not my type/I have no use for you”). The intro is especially enjoyable with the guitars giving off a hauntingly spacey sound. Plus, it’s nice to hear the melancholy Corgan crooning a sad song in the midst of all this upbeat tunage.
The song titles on this album are simple and un-artsy for the most part, fitting the musical aspects of the songs themselves. I expected to see a track on here called “Life is the Shoestring of Existence” with a string section and synthetic background beats, but there is only one song on here with strings, and the guitar is the most prominent instrument. The only song with a synthetic sound in it is “Heartsong,” which has this odd '80s feel that just makes me uncomfortable. Plus, song titles like “Baby let’s Rock!” and “Yeah!” are so simple, and so comical with those exclamation points, that I’m lead to acquire a mental image of a Mentos commercial, but then again, I’m really weird.
One of the best, if not THE best, songs on this CD is “Jesus, I/Mary Star of the Sea.” The opening sounds somewhat like a southern hymn; if you switched Corgan’s vocals with a gospel singer’s and switched the guitar to an organ, well, let’s just say if you played that on Sunday, it would get the hands raised. The highlight of this track, however, is most definitely the instrumental pieces. They just flat-out jam out at times, completely enveloping the listener in the music, and creating a dreamlike effect at times. Chamberlain really shines on this track, playing the drums with a ferocity worthy of a true rock star.
One of my favorite writers, Bill Simmons, once said this about Billy Corgan: “Does Billy Corgan sit around thinking, ‘If I blew my brains out right when Kurt Cobain did, we’d be considered the Magic and Larry of the Grunge Era’?” That statement, as funny and ludicrous as it seems, is entirely false. Corgan has established a fine career including and outside of grunge. He is a very talented musician who has been putting out fine music for a while now.
Zwan, however, doesn’t seem to be all that special in the larger scheme of things. It’s a good album, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not artsy, isn’t complicated, and sticks to a formula of consistent rock-- and that’s why I really liked this CD. It really looks like Billy Corgan has grown up from an ugly Pumpkin to a beautiful Zwan.
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