This album is the sixth and final release from the loveable Stone Temple Pilots, still featuring the original lineup of Scott Weiland on vocals, the enigmatic DeLeo brothers Dean and Robert on guitar and bass respectively and the highly ugly Eric Kretz on drums (poor Eric, he's great though). Rather than completely shake things up and go out with a bang this album is in contrast rather subdued with some slightly heavier moments but nothing beyond pop-rock, that said the majority of the tracks on this album are better than anything seen in the charts for the past four years so on with the review.
01 - Dumb Love: Beginning with a big crunching guitar riff the album starts out promising to be heavier than it is, the song is quite good, definitely not fantastic or memorable in any way but its difficult to remember an album barring Core and No.4 where the opener was of great quality anyway. 2/5
02 - Days Of The Week: The album kicks off properly here just as Purple did with Vasoline on track 2, this is one hell of a pop tune, gives Blink 182 and Greenday a run for their money, this song also played host to a rather strange video featuring door to door salesmen and spacemen floating into grannies living rooms. 5/5
03 - Coma: This songs opening riff gives off instant memories of the STP DVD that came with the greatest hits set, it was used for one of the menus, the song itself is rather enjoyable actually, not exactly heavy but heavy for the album with the usual uplifting chorus. 4/5
04 - Hollywood Bitch: More reminiscent of their Tiny Music stuff here, the song though is hard not to like with Scott singing venomously about some "Hollywood Bitch", it should also be noted that during the chorus Dean barely touces his strings bar the repeating scrape as Robert is left to lead it with some nifty bass work. 3/5
05 - Wonderful: This here is the highlight of the album, a lovely little song which starts off slight but gradually builds power kinda like a happy Big Empty, theres also this funny little background noise or riff or something that sounds just like its from some old Master System game, just hits all the right warm and fuzzy buttons. 5/5
06 - Black Again: Your given the impression that this song's going to be similar to Coma and Dumb Love when it starts, it has that same kind of soft crunching guitar riff typical of this album, it quickly lifts itself and ends up being a really nice pop tune, not as good as Wonderful but kinda like a more in your face version of that kind of music, with a slightly more depressing message. 4/5
07 - Hello It's Late: Hers's where the band decide to shed the musical style they've used all along and go for a more mature reflective approach and it works a treat, the song just keeps swirling round with even organs coming into play at one point, another great song. It must also be said that Scott looks like the the long lost Beatle in the accompanying video as he rummages around topless in his massive garden. 5/5
08 - Too Cool Queenie: A very close second for best pop tune on the album, I remember reading somwhere that its actually about Courteny Love, backed up by thw lyrics "There was this boy who played in a rock and roll band, and he wasn't half bad at saving the world, she said he could do no right, so he took his life this story is true" before later stating "And now this girl yeah she got real famous, and she made lots of money, and some of his too..", I dunno its all speculation but its a possibility. 4/5
09 - Regeneration: This songs actually pretty boring in comparison to the rest of the album, Scott's singing styles changed here and its kinda like he's spitting the words out, not very good, it must be said though that Deans guitar work here is quite dramatic, not enough to save the song though. 1/5
10 - Bi-Polar Bear: A song about Scotts Bi-Polar disorder, its heartfelt enough but it doesn't really make a really good song, Eric plays some real good drums though. 2/5 (The extra marks because its the first time I've ever heard Eric shine so much)
11 - Transmission From A Lonely Room: This song doesn't even sound like an STP track not even slightly, I think Scott was castrated just before recording this his voice is amusingly high. 1/5
12 - A Song For Sleeping: A lovely little guitar riff opens up the song before Scott starts fawning sickenenly over his newborn son, I mean its ok to be proud to be a dad, its natural, want to write a song about it? cool do so, don't make it a cheese fest though please. Annoyingly though when you disregard the bona-fide cheesy lyrics the songs actually bloody good and worthy of a 4, but because of cheesiness. 2/5
13 - Long Way Home: Probably the heaviest track on the album and the only actually heavy one, it sounds like an excerpt from No.4 or Purple, but since this kind of song has been done much better on both of these albums... 2/5.
So the 3 this album has been given is to reflect the fact that it travels between the fantastic (Wonderful, Days Of The Week) and the boring (Dumb Love) through to the wrong (Transmissions From A Lonely Room), but if your a fan it is worth getting for the high points, specially since most of them are missing from the Thank You greatest hits set.
