mxpx: secret weapon

mxpx has just released another album last week. its a nice noisy return to their roots. ive been a fan for many years now and have had the good fortune of seeing them half a dozen times or so. i got into them starting with 'slowly going the way of the buffalo'. the stuff before that i never got in to because it just seemed like chaotic noise, not much by way of melody. 'buffalo' still had some of those qualities, but was much crisper and the vocals could actually be understood. their following albums, 'the ever passing moment' and 'before everything and after' continued to move away from the punk feel that they had started in. these albums were more pop than punk, and it lent itself to catchier tunes, and a chance to better display their lyrics.

their last release, 'panic', kept the pop hooks, but leaned back into the punk sound a bit. their latest, 'secret weapon', continues that slide back into punk. the hooks arent as apparent on initial listenings, but im sure they will grow on me quickly. there is even a little bit of playing around with acoustic guitars and other non-punk instruments like a synthesizer and horns.
they do seem to know that the slow songs are not the vocalists strong point, so most songs speed up quickly. another thing that i appreciate about these guys is that, unlike many musicians, they dont skimp on album length. with the special edition of the album i got there are a total of twenty songs! i like it when a band makes it worth the investment. $15 for ten songs? boo!!! $15 for twenty songs? sounds good to me!

smashing pumpkins: zeitgeist

i was a bit late coming to the smashing pumpkins party in the 90s. about a year or so after the release of mellon collie and the infinite sadness i finally picked it up. i didnt much care for it, i liked the radio songs, but that was about it. the reason i picked it up at all was because my brother, in one of his kinder gestures, took me out for dinner one year on my birthday. after we ate, we went to best buy, and he said that i should pick out a cd, and he would buy it for me as a birthday gift. he liked the smashing pumpkins, and i wanted to be as cool as him, so i picked out that one.

the problem was that i never really got into it. the next summer adore came out. they played 'perfect' on the radio and i totally loved it! i resolved to pick up the album. it was very different than their earlier stuff, it was a lot more synth based, and seemed to be a bit more melodic. it wasnt just the loud guitars of their previous releases. i listened to that cd almost nonstop for the next year. in fact, at college that year it became a bit of a soundtrack among my friends. by the end of the school year there were several people who wanted me to make them copies for the summer (ahh, that was back during those innocent napster days...)

when their next album came out, machina, my buddy bob and i ran out and bought it together on its release day, then proceeded to spend the next hour listening to it in silence and following along with the lyrics in the cd booklet. (ah, good times...) that album was a bit of a return to the loud guitars sound of their previous stuff, and didnt quite grab me like adore did.

then it happened: they split up. i wasnt heart broken or anything, but i was disappointed. i followed corgan to zwan, which i actually enjoyed. there was a lot of potential there that was never tapped. they split, and billy put out a solo album. i never did get around to buying that. from what i hear in reviews, its not really worth picking up.

well, this week the pumpkins are back together and released a new cd: zeitgeist. i picked it up a couple days ago, and rather enjoy it. unfortunately it does not seem like much of an evolution for the band, rather, it seems like a retreat into the familiar. more loud guitars. oh well, at least some of the songs are catchy, and its always fun to be a bit nostalgic now and then.