In my last post about Zwan I called them "almost irredeemably terrible". This record represents the "almost" part of that sentence. Honestly isn't a terrible song. It's still worse than any Smashing Pumpkins song, but better than the other Zwan songs. If Billy Corgan wasn't involved I probably would have enjoyed it briefly as a summery indie-rock song and forgotten about it. It would be years before I learned to stop listening to things Billy Corgan was involved with post-2000.
But the b-side is where things get very interesting indeed. Like with the b-side to Lyric, this is a cover not sung by Billy (although there are other members of Zwan playing here). Here we have a cover of Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast sung Matt Sweeney, and it is beautiful (a word I don't use lightly). I'd struggle to choose the exact order of my Top Ten Covers, but this recording is definitely up there (it's worth checking out Moby's cover of Bad Brain's Sailin' On for another great cover from that list). Number of the Beast becomes an entirely different song here, played out on an acoustic guitar and simple drums with Matt Sweeney's incredible voice rounding it off. You'd never know it was a metal song. Somehow Matt's soothing vocals remove any evil from a song about 666 and the devil. That's quite something.
Some time after I got this record I saw the film Spun which features this version over the opening credits as the main character drives along an American landscape. For ages afterwards whenever I played this song I wished I was driving along an American highway; it somehow seems perfect.
And that's why I used the word "almost". Zwan gave me this incredible cover (from some definition of "Zwan") and for that I'm thankful.
Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £1 new
Bought: HMV Southampton
When: 11/03/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
