Stone Temple Pilots - No. 4 (Rocktober)

on Black and White Splatter Vinyl It would be tempting to scour No. 4, Scott Weiland's reunion with Stone Temple Pilots, for insights into his troubles, yet the group consciously avoids this throughout the album. That's for the best, since it's their hardest effort since their debut, Core. "Down" and "Heaven & Hot Rods" provide a powerful, brutal opening for No. 4 -- it's as if STP decided to compete directly with the new generation of alt-metal bands who prize aggression over hooks or riffs. With these two songs, the band's attack is as vicious as that of the new generation, but they retain their gift for gargantuan hooks. Much of the album hits pretty hard -- most explicitly on "No Way Out," "Sex & Violence," and "MC5," -- and even the ballads and neo-psychedelic pop have none of the swirling production that distinguished Tiny Music. That sense of adventure is missed, because even if the album finds STP returning to the muscular hard rock that made them, they always sounded b