STP: "Between the Lines"

Ok, wait. I know what's going through your mind right now, but you've got to fight the urge to hurl your KFC "Double Down" at the screen. It's true; no one in this band has been remotely relevant in 15 years, but just hear me out. We all know that these guys are responsible for two of the best alternative rock albums of the 90s. You can also add to the equation that I am truly an eternal optimist. Ergo, I gave it a spin. Easy enough. Nothing controversial about that. However, what cannot be so easily explained away is the question of how I could possibly enjoy what I was hearing. I mean, seriously, these guys have done nothing but poop out absolute garbage material since the clock rolled over a new millennium. No matter whether it was collectively, alone, or as part of some feeble excuse for a "super" group, it was all awful. I had to listen to "Between the Lines" twice, just to confirm that I was, in fact, getting some gratification from what I was hearing. Unbelievably, the gratification was confirmed. It's hard to know why, or what to blame it on: The fact that finding a single alt-rock song that doesn't totally suck in today's music scene would be akin to discovering that unicorns are, in fact, real? Maybe. A pre-midlife crisis that has me searching for a new pre-game pump up album? Possible, but not likely. Maybe it's the fact that that this new track hearkens back to the sound of Tiny Music and Scott Weiland's first solo album, both of which I enjoyed? Hard to say. Whatever the case, it's certainly better than anything Velvet Revolver or Talk Show ever thought of producing. I know, the album will probably be atrocious, but you don't refuse to stop and smell the roses just because you know there's a landfill waiting for you on the other side of the train tracks, right?

By the way, in case you're still here, and somehow interested, the new album, entitled Stone Temple Pilots, drops May 25. Forgive me.