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We've all heard the witticisms about SoCal's Stone Temple Pilots - Clone Temple Pilots, they sound eerily similar to Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc. Enough already! Purple, the much-maligned quartet's troubled but earnest sophomore release, resembles neither PJ nor the grungy 'Garden. Nope. It sounds more like Alice In Chains. (Rimshot.) But seriously, folks. This disc is dubbed Purple for good reason - that's the color of a bruise. STP has been beaten black 'n' blue by a world it didn't create and is now lashing out against that fate with vehement, embittered denunciations. Vocalist Scott Weiland - who's had to endure both critical barbs and the risks of quadruple-platinum, star-making machinery - pulls no punches on "Big Empty": "Drivin' faster in my car/Falling farther from just what we are/Smoke a cigarette and lie some more/These conversations kill." Like the previous "Plush," "Big Empty" is pretty accessible if you don't overanalyze it. It's a good, solid rock 'n' roll song, big on the Seattle-y guitarwork and heavy on Weiland's nasal Vedder/Comell/Staley drone - which is actually a pretty serviceable instrument in the classic rock/blues vein. But whatever the guy went through (rumor has it the group almost disbanded just prior to the recording of Purple), it's left its mark on him, because he's singing the blues like his life depended on it this time out, sounding positively feral on "Army Ants": "You don't look but you kick me/You can't feel but you hit me... I gotta heart/I got blood, feel pain." Misfortune and creativity often make perfect bedfellows, and Stone Temple Pilots - through trial and error - is learning, growing, maturing into something its detractors may soon have to take very seriously.
� 1978-1999 College Media, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Credit: CMJ
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