ZWAN: Mary Star of the Sea - A Review Beaten Into Submission
By aperturius | Posted in • MusicUPDATE - 9/18/03
Well, a mere nine months after writing this review, Zwan has called it quits. I guess just not enough people came to our little website here to learn just how decent the album was. In any event, Billy just got tired of promoting a band that didn’t have any fans and lacked the drug use, death, and dysfunction that the Pumpkins thrived on. Now Billy will be taking on an even less lucrative field: poetry. Whatever. See you in obscurity, man.
I will make no bones about it: Billy Corgan is insane. He’s a tall, bald-headed nut-job. Six beers short of a six-pack. But he writes good music, and he writes a lot. While most of us are lucky if we wake up by noon on the weekends just to spend the next three hours pouring Cocoa Puffs into a bowl while surfing useless websites, it is typical that Mr. Corgan will have written roughly 63 songs in the same time period. He’s prolific. And he has a new, improved band. And the man who once screamed about raging rats in cages is suddenly happy. The times have changed, folks.
The new band is called Zwan, for better or worse. It brings to my mind the name of that classic space shoot-em-up video game, Zaxxon. This is fitting, because not only does Zwan’s first album, Mary Star of the Sea, contain guitar sound effects that mimic the laser blast noise of a Quillarian battle cruiser (we all know what that sounds like, right? I thought so), but this album at many times sounds sooo 80’s. The trippy pep of new wave is the foundation of this record, along with equal parts Queen, blues rock, and of course, the Smashing Pumpkins.
But guess what? Unlike the Pumpkins, all of the new band members can actually play their instruments! It’s amazing! While D’arcy of the Pumpkins may have been rather easy on the eyes, she was lucky if she could figure out how to wrap the strap of her bass around her neck, let alone play the goddamn thing. That’s OK, from what I hear she has a new lucrative career of being a crack addict. Good for her. Filling her shoes is another quite attractive lady named Paz Lenchantin. Not only is she hot, but she can make actual musical notes with her bass and cello! Wow! Also gone is the quiet longhaired boy of the Pumpkins, James Iha. He is actually a decent musician who is working on his next alt-country pop record that no one (but me) will buy. In his place we get two guitarists for the price of one, the former indie rockers Matt Sweeney and David Pajo. Along with Billy they add a guitar richness that before could only be accomplished by 40 overdubbed electric guitars, as was the case on Siamese Dream. Did I mention Billy is insane?
The only other holdover from the Pumpkins is none other than the greatest damn drummer in rock today, Mr. Jimmy Chamberlin. How a man with only two arms and two legs can play drums with such unadulterated fury while still keeping perfect time will remain forever a mystery. Not one to let a former heroin addiction put an end to his fun, Jimmy plays on this record like a man repossessed, giving his best performance yet. Every fill fits like a glove and adds a dimension to the music that other drummers could only dream to give. Listen to tunes like “Ride a Black Swan” or “Baby Let’s Rock!” (worst…song titles…ever!) for a sweet taste of high-hat, snare-drummy goodness. Limp Bizkit might even sound halfway decent if they had Chamberlin as a drummer. But thank god they don’t.
Speaking of God, this is what Billy does a whole hell of a lot of on this album. Faith this, heaven that, Jesus I, you name it. The title of the album is even a biblical reference, about a saint who leads ships at sea to safe waters. As I mentioned earlier, Corgan is quite nuts. In fact, sometimes it seems like he’s only about two misfiring neurons away from being one of those city street-corner psychos, screaming at the voices in his head while taxi drivers throw cigarette butts at him. Corgan has confessed in his own songs that he hears what he thinks is the voice of God. What does He say? According to Corgan, God tells him to…rock. Yes, Billy Corgan is the one and only Patron Saint of Heavy Riffs. You heard it here first. And this Zwan album rocks nice and hard. It starts off with the skipping-stone drum beat of “Lyric,” and then settles down into the grooves of “Settle Down,” where we get the first taste of the doodle-e-doo guitar solos Billy likes so much. These are pop songs with some meat on their bones, unlike most of the uninspired slap-togethers and fridge buzzing we hear on modern radio so often. Very catchy stuff, and very happy. Corgan tells us in the new waver “El Sol” that all he wants is “sunshine, and some tea.”
This is where Corgan’s music has been headed ever since he wrote “1979” many years back, but it’s taken quite a few detours and wrong turns in the process of getting here. The detour was the album Adore, which came after a tumultuous time when people close to Corgan, including his mom, were dropping like flies. The wrong turn was Machina/The Machines of God, where Corgan deliberately tried to make an overdone, unenjoyable album, which he sadly succeeded in doing. Billy has always written about love and God, but whether it’s his old age or the fact that he’s finally surrounded by great musicians, the outlook is much sunnier this time around. This isn’t to say he can’t still get somber. Songs like “Of a Broken Heart” tear at the ol’ heartstrings, but with a newfound warmth. Corgan’s more possessed, Dr. Jeckyl side can still come out too, as it does in the 14-minute, part religious hymn, part barnburner “Jesus, I / Mary Star of the Sea.” But then, we would just be disappointed if he didn’t get obnoxious now and again, wouldn’t we?
It’s a nice feeling that my favorite musician seems to be growing along with me as the years go on. Back when I was stuck in high school, having Carrie-like thoughts without the telekinetic powers to back them up, there were the Pumpkins suffering right along with me. Now I’m an employed office monkey, making very little money, but with not so narrow and bitter of a world vision anymore (even with Dubya in Washington, strangely enough). Zwan seems to have the same philosophy. Screw the nasty shit and just plain rock. And try to change today’s music for the better while we’re at it.
And besides, if you buy the CD, it comes with free stickers! Everybody wins!!!!!
Mary Star of the Sea
Tracklisting:
1.Lyric
2.Settle Down
3.Declarations of Faith
4.Honestly
5.El Sol
6.Of a Broken Heart
7.Ride a Black Swan
8.Heartsong
9.Endless Summer
10.Baby Let’s Rock!
11.Yeah!
12.Desire
13.Jesus, I/Mary Star of the Sea
14.Come With Me
Rating:
Four and one-half Monkeys
What our staff thinks:
Andy Warhol: Did someone say, “Pop?”
William Shatner: The…..only thing wrong…….with…..the album……..is that I……..am not……singing on it! MISTER TAMBOURINE MAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!
