Stone Temple Pilots
Stone Temple Pilots sprang up out of nowhere in 1992 and vaulted to the top of the charts with a debut album, Core, that was chock full of a curiously faceless metallic grunge occasionally leavened by self-pitying acoustic interludes. Purple mostly sticks to that formula, offering plenty of meaty riffs and sullen proletarian anger. STP have been accused of modeling themselves after (if not outright ripping off) Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, but they are really more of a Grand Funk Railroad for the '90s, hammering out lowest-common-denominator FM fodder that might begin to sound snappy after repeated exposure. Ultimately, though, Purple is the punk equivalent of purple prose: over-wrought, ham-handed hard rock tainted by the unmistakable odor of hackwork. (Atlantic)
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