In Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan forged a deserved reputation as one of the most preening egomaniacs in rock, but his fiercest detractors will find this comeback impossible to dislike. Teaming up with guitarist Matt Sweeney, former Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, Slint's David Pajo and a few others, Corgan has blasted back with the strongest songs of his career. The Pumpkins' obsessive goth-rock has been ditched for exuberant, blissful pop-metal. Corgan's stint playing with New Order in 2001 has had an effect; the other key influence - explicitly acknowledged in the glam stomp of Ride a Black Swan - is T Rex.

The vision, though, is Corgan's own. His previously petulant whine is much more at home within these sunnier, shimmering melodies, and the mammoth self-regard has been channelled into songs of justified self-confidence, positivity, warmth, desire and sexual delirium.

In the stadium-sized Baby Let's Rock!, Corgan even quips: "I'm the best thing you've got... but in a good way." That's reason enough for Zwan to be huge.