Admittedly, I wasn’t really all that thrilled to hear that Billy Corgen, Jimmy Chamberlin, and a couple others were putting out a new Smashing Pumpkins album. This is why I was not entirely broken up when Zeitgeist proved to be a little underwhelming. There are a few things that put me off of Zeitgeist right from the beginning:

• Billy Corgan’s solo album Future Embrace was great IMHO, it moved in a direction that the Pumpkins only touched on in their later albums.
• Two original band members and a couple stand-ins do not make a reunion—especially when the two have already played together in another band.
• The whole thing sounds like a ploy to cash in on the nostalgia of their old fans who have grown into adults with jobs and paychecks to spend.
• Shower curtain capes are fragging lame.

So, onto the album. It starts out with Doomsday Clock, the only thing that stands out about this song is when Billy pulls out a couple lines that start out with “Apocalyptic.” It sounds so cheesy, just saying something is “Apocalyptic” does not give it substance…

Okay, I’ll stop myself right here and admit that I usually judge anything related to Smashing Pumpkins criticly since they were like these Alt-Rock gods during my disenchanted youth. While I don’t adore Zeitgeist I will say that it isn’t a huge flaming pile either. It’s just this catchy little altermative rock album that has suffered from too much hype, and some caped maniac’s delusions of grandeur. Truly, I might actually be able to enjoy it a little more if it was the debut album by Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin’s new band Milkweed or some crap like that.

’nuff said.