Stone Temple Pilots - Shangrila-la-dee da Vinyl

Stone Temple Pilots: Scott Weiland (vocals); Dean DeLeo (guitar); Robert DeLeo (bass); Eric Kretz (drums).
Recorded at The Malibu House, Malibu, California.
Falling between the eclectic expanse of 1996's TINY MUSIC and the dark heaviness of 1999's NO.4, SHANGRI-LA DEE DA vacillates between extroverted frontman Scott Weiland's wistful musings and guitarist Dean DeLeo's weighty riffs. Drawing from real-life trauma and hardship caused by his self-destructive tendencies, Weiland's lyrics achieve clarity not previously reached. When he's not railing against the demons of an addictive lifestyle ("Dumb Love") or recounting the tale of Kurt and Courtney (the shimmering "Too Cool Queenie") this grizzled survivor peels away the layers of his own mental state (the Zeppelin-like "Bi-Polar Bear"). Throughout SHANGRI-LA, STP's impressive musical range allows for a gorgeous song about Weiland's newborn son ("A Song For Sleeping"), the poisonous price of fame (the groove-driven grunge of "Hollywood Bitch"), and the battle through rumor and innuendo towards the bliss of recovery ("Regeneration"). With Weiland's demons put to rest (for the time being), Stone Temple Pilots are back on the trail to modern rock immortality that's already claimed many of their early-'90s contemporaries.

• Genre: Pop
• Format: Vinyl