vinylfanatics.com

**Mary Star Of The Sea**
*Zwan*
★★★☆☆

In the annals of rock history, few supergroup ventures have been as simultaneously promising and frustrating as Zwan's brief, incandescent flight across the musical firmament. Born from the ashes of The Smashing Pumpkins' acrimonious 2000 dissolution, Billy Corgan's latest brainchild represented both an ambitious creative rebirth and a curious retreat from the maximalist bombast that had defined his previous decade of dominance.

The origins of Zwan read like a fever dream of millennial rock mythology. After publicly declaring The Smashing Pumpkins dead and buried, Corgan assembled this unlikely quintet with the methodical precision of a chess grandmaster plotting his comeback. Recruiting former Pumpkins guitarist James Iha's replacement Matt Sweeney, A Perfect Circle bassist Paz Lenchantin, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin (his longtime rhythmic foil), and relative unknown David Pajo from post-rock outfit Slint, Corgan positioned Zwan as his great democratic experiment – a collaborative effort that would shed his reputation as an insufferable control freak.

The irony, of course, is that *Mary Star Of The Sea* sounds unmistakably like Billy Corgan's vision filtered through a gauze of forced optimism and spiritual awakening. Having recently embraced Christianity, Corgan approached these songs with the zeal of the newly converted, crafting hymns to redemption that occasionally soar but more often feel earthbound by their own earnestness. The album's title, referencing the Virgin Mary's maritime epithet, signals Corgan's newfound devotion while hinting at the nautical imagery that threads through several compositions.

Musically, Zwan inhabits a curious middle ground between the crushing weight of *Siamese Dream* and the acoustic introspection of Corgan's solo work. The quintet's expanded lineup allows for richer harmonic textures, with Lenchantin's melodic bass work and Pajo's atmospheric guitar flourishes providing welcome counterpoints to Corgan's familiar nasal wail. Yet for all the talk of collaboration, these arrangements rarely stray far from the Pumpkins' established template of quiet-loud dynamics and layered guitar orchestrations.

The album's finest moments arrive when Corgan's songcraft aligns with the band's collective chemistry. "Honestly" emerges as the collection's most immediate triumph, its propulsive rhythm section and cascading guitar lines recalling the Pumpkins at their most anthemic. Here, Corgan's lyrics about romantic reconciliation feel genuinely moving rather than merely confessional, while Chamberlin's thunderous drumming provides the perfect foundation for the song's emotional crescendos. Similarly affecting is "Lyric," a tender ballad that showcases the ensemble's restraint, with Lenchantin's bass melody dancing elegantly around Corgan's vulnerable vocal performance.

"Settle Down" offers perhaps the clearest glimpse of what Zwan might have achieved with more time to gel, its Eastern-tinged guitar work and hypnotic rhythms suggesting a band willing to explore beyond their leader's established comfort zone. The track's patient build and release demonstrates a collective maturity that makes the group's rapid dissolution all the more regrettable.

Less successful are the album's attempts at spiritual transcendence, which too often collapse under the weight of Corgan's heavy-handed symbolism. "Jesus, I" and "Mary Star Of The Sea" mistake religious imagery for profundity, while "Declarations Of Faith" feels like a sermon set to music. These moments reveal Corgan's persistent inability to trust his audience's intelligence, explaining his metaphors with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

The production, handled by Corgan himself alongside Bjorn Thorsrud, favors clarity over atmosphere, rendering each instrument with crystalline precision that occasionally robs the songs of their mystery. While this approach serves the album's more delicate moments well, it leaves the heavier tracks feeling somewhat sterile compared to the controlled chaos of classic Pumpkins recordings.

Zwan's legacy remains that of a fascinating footnote rather than a revolutionary statement. The band imploded within months of the album's release, torn apart by the same interpersonal tensions that had plagued Corgan's previous ventures. Yet *Mary Star Of The Sea* endures as a document of artistic transition, capturing a gifted songwriter grappling with questions