Mary Star of the Sea

You didn’t really think Billy Corgan was just gonna shut up and go away after smashing his last pumpkin, did you? He makes his return with Zwan, and fans of early Pumpkins classics like Gish and Siamese Dream will be happy to hear what he’s brought with him. Zwan skip the noisy dissonance and ornery experimentation that crept into later Pumpkins albums, instead letting fly one lush, hooky guitar blitz after another. “Baby, let’s rock!” Corgan sings on the song of the same name, pretty much summing up the record’s loud and proud MO. Fellow ex-Pumpkin Jimmy Chamberlin bangs out the beats, lending serious muscle to tracks like “Lyric” and “Endless Summer,” while former indie-rock luminaries Matt Sweeney (ex-Chavez) and Dave Pajo (ex-Slint) beef up the already pretty meaty guitar sound. We’ve always known that Corgan was a classic rocker at heart, and with Zwan he finally seems ready to drop the pretension and be exactly that. We say it’s about time.