1. Middle Of Nowhere
2. Guilty
3. Meadow
4. Just A Little Lie
5. Six Eight
6. Thought She'd Be Mine
7. Roll Me Under
8. Never Enough
9. The Art Of Letting Go
10. Finest Hour
11. Good Shoes
12. Reds & Blues
Following the tragic deaths of their original frontman Scott Weiland in 2015 and then his replacement Chester Bennington last year, Stone Temple Pilots heralds another new beginning for the 90s alt.rock stalwarts. Inevitably, of course, all eyes and ears will be on new vocalist Jeff Gutt, who has the task of carrying his predecessors’ legacies forward into the next chapter.
Luckily, in Gutt, a one-time X Factor contestant and frontman of nu metal band Dry Cell, the band have unearthed a voice that’s spookily similar to Weiland and perfectly capable of hitting the highs and lows of the late frontman’s baritone range.
Elsewhere, the music impresses too. Middle Of Nowhere and Guilty put a modern twist on the muscular melo-rock and massive hooks of STP’s multi-textured, coming-of-age album Tiny Music… Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop. Meanwhile, Roll Me Over takes its cues from their grunge-indebted debut Core.
There are moments on this album when you wish founding members the DeLeo brothers had kept their foot on the gas: Six Eight is particularly bland, and only time will tell if Gutt can bring some of Weiland’s much-missed loose-cannon swagger to the table. But in the meantime this is a promising first step into a new era.
