Shangri-La Dee Da

06/19/2001 7:50 PM, Yahoo! Music
Ken Micallef

Ten years from today, enterprising young bands may cite Stone Temple Pilots as an influence more readily than the oft-canonized Nirvana. And why not? With Shangri-La Dee Da, this grunge-surviving, drug-overcoming Southern California four-piece make yet another bombshell of an album, blowing the lid off with majestic melodies, muscular pop-metal, and lyrics that detail singer Scott Weiland's battle with life and inner demons. By contrast, Nirvana may be remembered as Dave Grohl's first band and Courtney Love's first meal ticket.

Shangri-La Dee Da rages from the git-go with "Dumb Love" and its warning, "Alcohol, it's a lie, stimulate a needle in your eye." Drug survivor (we hope) that Weiland is, he is ready to proselytize. But Shangri-La Dee Da is anything but a downer. It offers more melody than most bands can beg, borrow, or steal; and enough bullet-the blue-sky glam dynamics to make it all fly by. The stumbling "Hollywood Bitch" lambastes Sunset Strip groupies with galvanic guitar and palatable Cheap Trick appeal, though the lyric, "Blow up the bitch with the firecracker smile" shows Weiland still loves trouble. "Wonderful" depicts a different female, the one that got away. Singing of loss over a gentle strum that is as lovely as Alice In Chains in a field of daisies, STP go all AOR on us. The tom-tom rumbling "Black Again" is yet more divine pop, a waltzing rock shakedown. "Hello It's Late" is a forlorn acoustic missive; "Too Cool Queenie" swirls with Cheap-Trick-meets-Stones shimmy; "Regeneration" defames rock star living with black-hearted guitar riffs just as "Transmissions..." celebrates escape and rejuvenation. The Zeppelin-ish "Long Way Home" closes this party in the sky with a low-rider groove and a shambling, hook-laden chorus. If STP are home for good, with all its family intact, Shangri-La Dee Da must be their idea of the ultimate meet-and-greet.