Zeitgeist Hyattsville MD

Zeitgeist

Smashing Pumpkins

Reprise/WEA, 2007

REVIEW BY: Benjamin Ray

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 07/18/2007

Rarely are music reunions about anything more than money. Rarer still has a reunion album come within a shadow of the band's former music.

Zeitgeist is no exception. It's not nearly as good as the Smashing Pumpkins of old. It, frankly, is a disappointment in pretty much every way, continuing the recent downslide of Billy Corgan's music since 1998.

The Pumpkins were never really a band, but rather the singular vision of Corgan, in much the same way Trent Reznor is Nine Inch Nails. His band was little more than window dressing, so it's no surprise two of the members chose not to come back for Zeitgeist, which comes seven years after the band's final studio effort, MACHINA/The Machines of God. Only drummer Jimmy Chamberlin stops by for this reunion; he is the best thing here.

Because he ruled the studio, Corgan never had anyone challenging him; he wrote and performed on most of Siamese Dream, one of the peaks of the early-90s alternative boom, and he writes and performs everything here except the drums. Such a singular vision can fail if left unchecked, and here it fails on nearly every song.