SOUND BITES

If you can ignore the name on the cover and basically everything you've ever known about Stone Temple Pilots, there's a certain charm to be heard in the (mostly) acoustic arrangements that are the calling card of Stone Temple Pilots' eighth album. Actually, hang on, I have some comparison points I can call on from the band's past successes that will paint a picture if what listeners are in for. Remember how refreshing it was when the band would throw an acoustic curveball on their two biggest albums? The easy-going melodic sweet spot that the acoustics lent smash hit Creep ? The way acoustic guitar helped drive home Interstate Love Song before it was turned into a truck commercial ? The kooky, schmaltzy Purple hidden track 12 Gracious Melodies ? Well, on Perdida , let's just say that hidden track looms larger than the other examples. This thing is a slog to sit through, 45 minutes of dirge after dirge with precious little energy to be felt from any of the pe...

By now, most of us are well versed with the tragic history of Stone Temple Pilots; after a pair of well-received records in the early '90s, diminishing returns and increasing interband tension (and, maybe, just a little drug use) resulted in the dissolution of the band after their half-hearted 2001 flop  Shangri La De Da . There was a tentative reunion record nine years later that leaned on classic rock influences and ultimately didn't leave much of a mark, and an ugly split with Scott Weiland followed in 2013. Later that year, STP resurfaced with Linkin Park's Chester Bennington as their new singer, releasing the High Rise EP and playing a handful of shows over the next two years and change before Bennington announced his departure from the band. A month after that, Weiland was found dead on his tour bus, while Bennington committed suicide in 2017. No one would have been too shocked or outraged if the surviving members of the band went on to do something else with the...

When I think about '90s bands who fell hard and far from grace, Stone Temple Pilots is one of the first bands that comes to mind. Through poor artistic decisions and great amounts of narcotics, they managed to snuff their own careers out to the point where the last album they made before originally disbanding, 2001's Shangri-La Dee Da , barely cracked the top ten. Just seven years earlier, Purple found Stone Temple Pilots achieving a sweet spot not many bands ever get to see. Silencing critics who wrote Core off as a derivative Pearl Jam record with slightly louder guitars even as it sold in excess of 8 million copies, Purple showed significant artistic growth and a knack for hooks that propelled the album to the top and almost* maintained the torrid multi-platinum pace of Core , going platinum six times over and establishing Stone Temple Pilots as one of the world's most popular bands. *"Almost" in the U.S. at least. Here in Canada, Purple actually so...

They can't all be shining examples. Collected below are ten songs/artists that I hesitated to nominate for the Year in Rock awards, but have redeeming qualities to them nonetheless. Some impressed me initially only to have interest wane quickly; others I expected better from. These are Year in Rock 2013's Honourable Mentions:

One of the year's most anticipated releases has to be the upcoming third album from New Yorker art-rockers Vampire Weekend. Their light, unassuming style of indie rock has endeared them to bloggers and TV ad execs alike; their sophomore album, 2010's Contra, actually debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts upon release (not a smash hit as it was released on a quiet January Tuesday, but a #1 nonetheless). Now, as we near the third album's spring release, a few buzzwords are being thrown around in relation to it. Darker. Organic. Nocturnal. Whether this bodes well for the sound of the record is to be determined, but it got me thinking. Throughout modern history, bands have often made bold moves, twists in their artistic story arc that have polarized fans, critics and label heads. For many bands, this act of commercial defiance happens at a certain specific point in their careers. The "difficult" third album.