‘Between the Lines’

Speaking of unpacking my old flannel shirts, Stone Temple Pilots are back. Again. But unlike previous efforts at reconciliation, they seem for real this time, having released on Tuesday the eponymously named Stone Temple Pilots.

After splitting in 2003, STP reunited five years later for a North American tour. The band continued together in a sort of half-hazard manner, playing festivals, battling their record company, and weathering a Weiland solo album and tour.

Finally getting it all back together last year, STP did a short tour, then went almost immediately into the studio and recorded the tracks that would make up Stone Temple Pilots. The new songs have the feel of a classic STP album, from the grungy, hippy feel of the opening track, “Between the Lines,” to the oddball closing track, “Samba Nova.” In between is the grunge/pop/hook-filled-whatever-it-is you’ve come to love from STP.

One thing that I never even considered as I listened to this disk is that STP was taking a country music approach to the album. Songs such as “Hickory Dichotomy” and “Huckleberry Crumble” “really are a lot of country riffs, but in typical STP fashion we stepped into some other areas,” guitarist Dean DeLeo told MusicRadar.com. “It's amazing how if you were to present [“Huckleberry Crumble’s”] opening riff on a Tele really clean, it's almost a country riff. But if you present it with a Les Paul through a Marshall, it takes on this whole different thing.”

STP resume their current tour June 5 in Irvine, Calif. For more tour information, etc., check out their Website. What? No Florida dates? lol

This is a live version of “Between the Lines,” the first single and song one on side one of Stone Temple Pilots. It was included as a bonus track on the version of the CD I got.

Between the Lines (live).mp3

Labels: grunge, new stuff

posted by aikin @ 7:00 AM