I just don't care much about lyrics or poetry; only sound and the emotion that can be communicated with it, although that does include vocals. In this case, Pisces Iscariot is disappointing since most of the sound is uninspired with the exception of a few songs including Landslide and Frail and Bedazzled.

In my opinion, Gish is my least favorite album, and this album is at best on par with Gish, but with a sound leaning more towards Siamese Dreams. However, make no mistake, this album is nothing similar to Siamese Dreams or Millon Collie. Nothing in this album will sound as good as any of the hits from either of those albums.

Before the Smashing Pumpkins became well, just another rock band, they had an album that to this day seems to be overlooked by fans and forgetful folk alike. Personally, it is one of my favorite albums ever!

Call it A-sides, call it B-sides, call it whatever you care to, I call it timeless, sonic rock that presents the bands ability to apply smooth, genuine textures to slow songs that are given a sharp, razor edged backing with the vocals of singer Billy Corgan. Plume is a song that has a great, simple beat that is shadowed by Corgan's swooning vocals. The tempo and rhythm found within this album is all over the place, and that is not meant to mean it is abstract, funky metal noise. The tones of these songs will pull at your heartstrings and tickle the brain. Corgan relishes with delight as he says his boredom "has outshined the sun" on Plume, but the listener is anything but bored with this artistic and powerful production.

The cover of the song "Landslide" is honestly the best the song has ever seen, no offense to artists who sang it before of course. If one was not pleased with the radio friendly rock hits the band had from time to time, this CD should not be passed up. To not give this CD a chance would be a crime, and suffice to say that if you are not moved by the sonic guitar intro of "Starla" or given warm fuzzies with the elegant and often sad feelings that evoke from "Obscured" then I apologize for wasting your time with this review, I can only hope that when you do hear the album, you will feel that the first listening experience you have with this CD is time well spent.

Amazingly, this set of outtakes is about as good as Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness. What's up with that? Clearly someone forgot to tell Billy that outtakes are supposed to be massive dungheaps. And there are only two or three massive dungheaps on this album! And "Landslide" is not among them. Now, Fleetwood Mac sucks so bad they're off the suckotron 2008, but I love "Landslide". It's a fabulous song. In fact, it's the only song they ever put out that's not an absolute obnoxious marathon of pure crap. And this version's better than the original! Just Billy and his acoustic guitar, singing at his most emotional. I'm just glad he didn't decide to cover "Go Your Own Way" - if he did that, I'd be sticking my head in the toilet. I'd make sure it was flushed first though. There's another cover here, and that's "A Girl Named Sandoz", which rocks out. I like it! I only know one Animals song ("The House of the Rising Sun", of course!), so I don't know how this stacks up against the original, but I do know I like its feedback fun section. And the group also rocks out on "Pissant", which I will stand up and salute. Okay, not quite, but it's a good song. Oh, I like "Frail and Bedrazzled" too, because again they really rock on it. And some of the softer stuff is amazing too! "Soothe" is the best demo I've ever heard; "Whir" and "Obscured" are nice and melodic; even James Iha's "Blew Away" sounds good, even though the lyrics are just awful. Ignore them. And then ignore "Starla", which is so repetitive it practically wasn't written. So what does Billy do? He stretches it out to eleven minutes with all kinds of guitar wanking. So... *w00ts the least enthusiastic, most sarcastic w00t known to man*. I mean, it starts off sounding decent, maybe it would've been, but after a while it's just, "okay, haven't we all got something better to do?" And a few other songs are bad too ("Blue"; "Hello Kitty Kat") - none of this stuff would've made it onto one of the group's studio albums, no way. Had they taken those three out it might've been their best! Who knows? Oh, and the title has a certain ring to it, even if the two words have nothing to do with each other at all.

I first heard the Smashing Pumpkins on the Singles Soundtrack, the song was called Drown and, even thought it didn't make it to a SP album, it is as good as the best the band has produced.
A collection of b-sides which are, mostly, the leftovers from the astounding Siamese Dream (which may be my favourite cd of all time), Pisces Iscariot shows the great moment billy was having as a songwriter (though he certainly didn't feel so). It opens, quietly, with the incredibly beautiful soothe (recorded in billy's apartment, or in a hotel room, i don't quite remember), and follows with the energetic Frail and Bedazzled. There, you get the impression that these songs didn't quite fit Siamese Dream (which is a very tight album). They are great, but not in the same mood, or maybe there were songs on SD that already fulfilled the purpose of these material.
Anyway, the rest of the cd is just first class material, I particularly love the nice guitar work of Whir, the tender and surprisingly enchanting interpretation of Landslide, the sonic bliss of Starla, and the slow builder, La Dolly Vita. This cd is one of the best samples of alternative rock, if such a thing ever existed. oh, don't forget to check out Siamese Dream, Mellon Collie and Adore, which are also great pumpkins cds (even better than this one)

These B-sides sound better than 95% of the band's other output. Maybe it's because these songs don't suffer from the over-production of the band's other output (eg, "Melancholy..."??? Give me a break. What an over-blown, over-produced, snooze-fest). "Pisces Iscariot" is by far the best CD the band ever put out.

From the pummeling "Frail and Bedazzled" to the lilting "Obscured" to the majestic "Starla", there isn't a single weak moment on this CD. It's amazing these songs didn't make the cut for SP's prior CD's. The fact that "Starla" was a show-stopper whenever it was performed speaks for itself.

In fact, if you want a top-quality SP collection, buy this CD and download "Cherub Rock" (from Siamese Dream) and the full-length version of "Drown" from the "Singles" soundtrack (with complete feedback solo at the end). You can skip the rest and you won't miss much of anything.