Heroin has become to Scott Weiland what the Stone Temple Pilots' new album, "No. 4," will soon become to every rock and roll CD collection - a sheer necessity.
But somehow, between subpoenas, hearings and arraignments, the smack-addicted lead singer, along with guitarist Dean DeLeo, bassist Robert DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz, managed to lay down enough material to complete the album before his trip to the sin bin. Thank goodness for full court dockets.
The 11-song rock disc is a relentless, charged manifesto. It is a revelatory demonstration of what the rock world has been devoid of since early 1990s grunge tore through the industry - edginess and urgency.
Some hard rock fans will argue that the rough, tough and raw never disappeared, pointing to bands like Korn, Pantera and Limp Bizkit. But where those thrashers convey a feeling of having gone over the edge, singing songs describing the anger and damage of the fall, STP tiptoes along the top of the cliff with the destruction of a skull-splitting dive looming, but not yet realized. Therein lies the tension and therein lies the beauty.
The capacity to meld the down-tempo groove and tropical melody of a song like "I Got You," with the brutal growl and anguished vocals of "Down," the album's first single, makes "No. 4" all-encompassing and unpredictable. The potential for explosion lurks during the calm sections, and the imminent calm whispers jarringly during the explosions - musical torture is achieved.
On "Pruno," Weiland unleashes a sinister, reverberating chorus, countered by a reserved, winding vocal line during the verse. This is textbook Weiland, as he displays what has been apparent since STP's birth - that his vocal ability is nearly limitless. By operating in multiple octaves, delivering varied inflections and levels of projection, and almost always mixing several of his "voices" into individual songs, ("Big Empty" should be a familiar example) Weiland's vocal melange fortifies the calculated instability of "No. 4" - you never know what he will sound like next.
"No Way Out" is a return to the corrosive grinding of the earlier tracks. Weiland uses his Seattle sound to couple the short, cutting guitar riffs of the verse. The deep, Vedder/Cornell/Weiland trademark that dominated most of "Core," STP's debut album, intensifies the darkness of the lyrics on "No. 4": "I'm going under. / I'm suffocating / Drowning but I'm holding on."
Fans of the gracious melodies of "Purple," the band's second album, will enjoy "Glide." Arguably the most rounded song of the disc and certainly the closest thing to the psychedelia of "Purple" and "Tiny Music: Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop," "Glide" relies on chorused guitars which surge into heavier distortion as Weiland's long, echoed melodies rule the foreground. The structure of the song is more intricate than many of the tracks on "No. 4," employing more dynamic volume and tempo changes, creating a stronger emotional current.
The last song on "No. 4" is "Atlanta," a retro-rock ballad backed by a subtle string arrangement courtesy of David Campbell. Beautifully orchestrated and anchored by a lonely, acoustic guitar break in the middle, and capped off by a bass marimba solo at the end, "Atlanta" supplies a notable end to the album.
It is unfortunate it took the failure of Scott Weiland's solo career and the lack of popularity of Talk Show - the band formed by the remaining members of STP in Weiland's absence - to reunite the band.
With "No. 4," they show that they may be one of rock's leaders in the next millennium if Weiland can stay out of jail long enough to record "No. 5."
Grade: A-
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