Jimmy Chamberlin is ridiculously good.
A few drummer friends of mine regard him as one of best they’ve ever seen. See this video of them playing “Geek USA” at at hyper speed.
I was just thinking about how Adore and Machina are two of my favorite discs. The former is just beautiful. I wish people in the US would give it a chance. Most of the songs have real drums! Seriously, read the booklet, or the Wikipedia page!
As for the latter, it’s an emotional roller-coaster. The first time I heard “The Everlasting Gaze”, I thought it was a bit ham-fisted, but then I heard “Stand Inside Your Love”, and I knew I was going to like the album. It sounds like Billy knew the band would be calling it quits for some time, and I he threw everything he had into it.
After a concert on the Zeitgeist tour, I got to tell Billy how much I appreciate those two albums, and he said something about how some time would be needed to place them in context and let the positive consensus accrue. As for Zeitgeist itself, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. I like “That’s the Way (My Love Is)”, and now that I think about it, the songs may just be scattershot and unfocused, but not bad. As for Oceania, it’s a mood piece that flows together, though there aren’t really any standout tracks.