If I were to look at the first fifty records I owned, I’d be a little embarrassed by the selection. Not so much because I owned an inordinately large amount of junk (the majority still holds up well today), but rather because the lineup was so repetitive, even predictable in its sameness. Mostly grunge (and dour alternative rock lumped into the grunge label) from the early-to-mid nineties, loud and angry and grim—made all the more alarming because I was not at all like the stereotypical lost, apathetic youth that were noted to gobble up this stuff.
But while I recognize now that the Offspring had no place in the same conversation with Nirvana, I don’t feel an enormous amount of shame in saying that I still kinda like Smash. My fondness for the likes of Throwing Copper and Blood Sugar Sex Magik have also faded yet they remain reliable or better in my estimation. But Candlebox? Corrosion of Conformity? Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid? Yeesh. One group, however, that I still insist is criminally undervalued and wrongfully scorned by us “elitist snob music critics” is Stone Temple Pilots. Turns out I was mostly wrong and they mostly accurate about Core (a decent record, but one ill-representative of who they are, and one I’m sick to death of—I could go the rest of my life never hearing “Dead and Bloated” and “Creep” ever again and be content). But the four albums afterward, from the near-masterpiece Purple to the vastly underrated, overlooked (and lamely-named) Shangri-La Dee Da, all hold up almost miraculously well some ten to fifteen years later.
Of those four post-Core efforts, the flimsiest was the solid but unspectacular No. 4, which could be forgiven somewhat because it came after a hiatus and we were just glad that STP was still recording (and Scott Weiland was still ticking). In that same light, should we be more forgiving of Stone Temple Pilots, the band’s eponymous sixth studio LP? After all, people were banking on the first reunion more than this one, especially once Velvet Revolver’s debut album sold well…but then the second record wound up a commercial dud and Weiland disappeared from the group’s lineup. But the market for nostalgia proves to be yielding no inches today, and the cynicism we once sported in believing a reunion would never happen has mutated into the breed that makes us sigh and declare that a bankruptcy of accounts or ideas will eventually bring them back for a buck. Should that jaded view influence our expectations of this album, though?
Admittedly, my expectations were muted somewhat once first single “Between the Lines” began churning through the airwaves a couple months ago. As a stale, standard-issue rocker with Weiland’s arena-size wail blaring through it, if it weren’t announced by the deejays that it was new STP, I and millions of others would have assumed it was another shrugworthy routine rocker from Velvet Revolver. Mistaking gummy brawn for chest-thumping swagger and plodding through stilted, self-descriptive lines like, “You always were my favorite drug/Even when we used to take drugs,” it’s only narrowly more appealing than the last poorly chosen STP album lead single, “Days of the Week.” But while ‘Days” was easily the weakest cut on Shangri-La (and therefore, easier to forgive), “Between the Lines” represents a caution flag to the listener: Filler Ahead.
Even those appreciative of STP’s earlier output mostly still tended to gravitate towards the radio hits. But I was among the minority who found endless replays of “Plush” and “Vasoline” to be a bit tiresome and instead sought out meaty numbers in between like “Atlanta,” “Kitchenware & Candybars,” “Tumble in the Rough” and “Regeneration.” You could expect a filler track or two, but they weren’t distracting too much after replays. Repeated spins of Stone Temple Pilots, though, emphasizes the gulf between those that are effective and those that are merely taking up space—and the latter greatly outnumbers the former. Most distressing is a run in the album’s midsection: the empty rev-up doldrums of “Hazy Daze,” “Bagman,” “Peacoat” and “Fast As I Can” amount to nothing discernibly memorable. “Fast” is driving, to be sure, but also forgettable with the usual nondescript platitudes (“There’s a hole in my soul where the sun don’t shine”). This is particularly unfortunate since, while Weiland was never a particularly crafty (or intelligible) lyricist, the DeLeo brothers wrote plenty of catchy tunes in the past, even showing ambition in marrying psychedelia, folk pop, and assorted exotic bits into their gloomy post-grunge crunch bread and butter. But the austere psych pop that inhabited numerous songs on Tiny Music and the heartfelt, ballad-rich Shangri-La has become oil to water on this album—the tunes are either druggy or crashing, heavy or feathery, never both.
Their harder rocking side is particularly bland on this outing. In addition to “Between the Lines” and the aforementioned mid-section drag, the stutter hook and “Working Man” chord clang that introduces “Huckleberry Crumble” is ultimately undone by a mordant and toothless sleaze-blues regurgitation (Aerosmith, anyone?). The vacant, overdriven strut of “Hickory Dichotomy” sounds like an Iggy Pop-type singing over the least inspired riffs of Jimmy Page’s career. And “Dare If You Dare” treads a dull line between power ballad and heartland rock, and by having a reverb riff that sounds spot on to “Still Remains,” echoing of “Big Empty” in its pace and bleed, and attempting to match the sweltering drama of “Kitchenware & Candybars,” it just tastes like a sour stew of Purple’s magnetic recordings. The only heavy affair on here that rises to the top is “Take a Load Off,” with hooky pre-chroruses and refrains alike. A song like this one proves that Weiland really dodged the drug spiral bullet; not only did he survive the struggle, but his voice remains a true force of nature when the material/purpose fits—too bad it only enlivens in fits and starts.
The band is much more adept this outing on the numbers that sound as little indebted to 70s power rock and 90s grunge as possible. Although “Maver” is little more than a decent mid-tempo rocker that runs long past the point of interest, the tune before that, “First Kiss on Mars,” finds Weiland doing a Bowie-meets-Morrison croon over an enthusiastic, spry mélange of glam, country and space rock (goofy, stoned lines like, “Can we really find love? The magic place we dream of. Super magic robots set the solar system free,” intact). “Cinammon”’s pop rock jangle bargains amongst 60s pop harmonies, the no-frills appeal of Tom Petty, and the gentle breed of early 90s college/alternative, all to great success. And consumers of the deluxe edition will be treated to the relaxed island breeze and psychedelically distorted vocals of “Samba Nova” at the conclusion.
These highlights aren’t great tunes by any stretch of the imagination, but relieving us of the same staggered power chords again and again is a generosity that can’t be trivialized. And even though there doesn’t appear to be more than a song or two on here that you’d be happy to hear a year from now, small miracles count in their favor—nothing on here is as painful as any given rock single on the air right now from the likes of Godsmack, Three Days Grace, Mudvayne, et al. If your standards are lowered, you’ll probably find Stone Temple Pilots to be a satisfactory affair, but any harbored optimism that these champions of the old guard will reignite a thoroughly torpid hard rock scene dwindles before the album even completes its first spin. I’ve always forgiven this outfit for its unremarkable prose and fits of unoriginal compromises in the past because they could pen a terrific melody and deliver a jarring riff or two with great consistency. Empty was fine in their niche, but dull isn’t—whichever it might ultimately be, this outfit deserves a better swan song or third act opener, and so do their loyal, longtime fans.
"Stone Temple Pilots" is on sale May 25, 2010 from Atlantic.
