Unlikely things happen all the time. John McCain, as of late last year the presumed front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, is now on the verge of a total campaign meltdown; the White Stripes, arguably one of the biggest bands in the world, now seem to be traveling around Canada playing the weirdest, smallest venues possible; several days ago I found $5 just sitting on the sidewalk. Still, the idea of the Smashing Pumpkins reuniting in 2007 (sans James Iha and D'arcy) and releasing a halfway decent record is so ridiculous as to be considered nearly crazy. Billy Corgan's last worthwhile album, Adore (1998) was released almost a decade ago, and since then he's been responsible for the two Machina (2000) installments and the Zwan clusterfuck. Not too reassuring.

Somehow, though, "Tarantula," the first single off Zeitgeist, is pretty decent, even given that the guitar compression has been turned up to 11 and the lyrics are typical Corgan nonsense. The key seems to be that Jimmy Chamberlain is still an ace behind the drum kit; here they've got him amped up almost as loud as the guitars making "propulsive" too weak a word to describe the song. The band goes tearing headlong through the track until the 2:52 mark where they suddenly devolve into a guitar solo and twenty seconds of Siamese Dream (1993)-style emo posturing. It's a weird little quiet section in an otherwise delightfully overblown piece of fluff. Luckily, with the video you can pretty much ignore it, 'cause if you're anything like me you'll still be marveling over Billy Corgan and his cape and newfound ability to shoot lasers out of his eyes.

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