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Stone Temple Pilots are, of course, known for their unenviable timing: since 1996, whenever the San Diego grunge mannequins put out a record, singer Scott Weiland tends to further his rep as a first-rate Hollywood screw-up. But get this: No. 4 is the type of Zep-indebted bad vibe record that kids loved about five years ago. Seems Stone Pimple Toilets (so dubbed by the Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes) keep it real the 1995 rock radio way, utterly foregoing the elegant, post-grunge reinvention of, say, Chris Cornell. So good on the Pilots, since No. 4 gains from the fact that the competition in the hard rock sweepstakes are the comparatively drab Creed, and not potent forebears like Alice in Chains. And damn if the three leaden numbers that open the album aren't flat-out exciting. But only after a couple of limp mid-tempo tunes do the Pilots really start getting it: "No Way Out" actively claims and mightily defends a bit of Limp Bizkit territory; "Sex & Violence" is anchored by nagging Page-style licks and the torrid rhythm section symbiosis of drummer Dave Kretz and Robert DeLeo; "MC5" demonstrates a heretofore unknown facility for Dee-Troit raunch. And the closing "Atlanta" finds Weiland evoking an epic Billy Joel ballad. Despite startlingly unimaginative song titles (not to mention the shrugged-off album title), No. 4 is a fine record. But does it, as a perhaps overeager reviewer has suggested, resurrect rock as we once knew it? Not bloody likely. But even it could, it would be hard to definitively do so - that's pretty much impossible when your frontman's in the pokey.
� 1999 Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved. Credit: VH1
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