In the summer of 1993, Glasses Jack and Eric G. organized an all day barbecue dance party in Charleston, South Carolina. Somehow, Eric convinced the town fathers to cordon off two blocks off of King Street for a night (the equivalent of shutting down Main Street) and let the kids throw a party. I’m still not sure how Eric pulled this one off, but my gut tells me that some sort of Wiccan magic had to be involved, or perhaps a tremendous amount of blackmail.

In any case, most of the night passed without incident. I enjoyed the good food and truth be told, getting my teenage groove on to lame mid-1990s proto-techno wasn’t too bad, but my ears need The Rock. I like beep beep just fine, but I go crazy over chunka chunka. Suddenly, Smashing Pumpkins’ I Am One cranks up — what DJ has a copy of U Can’t Touch This and Gish? — and the punks and freaks crash the dance floor. Dance floor? The street. but Eric started a mosh pit anyway, because he was a big fan of inciting a riot.

I Am One is a supercharged guitar drenched rave-up, and two minutes in we were all covered in sweat, knocking elbows and knees, and generally causing havoc for one another. Meanwhile, Jack stalked the group, skanking the perimeter of this improvised pit, until suddenly he unleashed his body upon mine, and knocked me to the ground. I slid down on my hands and knees, hit the pavement with a thud and lie there with the wind knocked out of me. A few minutes later, the song ended, and I pulled my bloody palms, knees and elbows to the curb, still gasping for breath. That’s what I remember about the Pumpkins.

We all know what happend next.

Smashing Pumpkins spent most of the latter part of the 1990s like I spent that night, bloodied and stewing on the sidelines, until the final inevitable collapse under the crush of Billy’s ego, Jimmy and D’Arcy’s drug use and James’ indifference.

But before Billy Corgan morphed into a his paranoid and gothic electronica-cum-guitar melancholy, he was a cetified Rock God, Say what you want about the later work (the pretentious Adore or the forgettable MACHINA/The Machines of God), if Cherub Rock didn’t make you jump around in your room then your feet were probably nailed to the floor.

Which brings me to Zwan, Billy Corgan’s new band. Do they sound like the Pumpkins? Of course, but it’s the Pumpkins you love.Corgan — who is listed in the liner notes as Billy Burke — brought back Jimmy Chamberlain, whose shuffling drums were always the shifting foundation of the Pumpkin’s sound. Jimmy drumming sounds as frenetic, vigorous and splashy as ever. And the songs, Good God Man, the SONGS! It seems that with Zwan, Corgan has made an uneasy peace with the Pumpkins legacy, or maybe he’s finally grown into himself.

In any case, Corgan seems to be out of his “tortured rock-star” phase and Mary Star of the Sea pays accurate tribute to that fact. These fourteen songs are positively ebullient, the sort of anthemic guitar rock that’s missing from the airwaves since the implosion of alternative-indie-underground-whatever music in the late 1990s — an implosion caused in some small way by the rock-diva antics and preposterous posturing of Corgan himself.

Songs like the radio-ready Honestly and Declarations of Faith hint at this older and wiser Billy, thinking more about family and friendships than spilling some carefully crafted angst across the stage. Billy’s done with his “rat in a cage” bit, and if you don’t believe me, take a listen to “Baby Let’s Rock” and “Yeah!” Goth Billy would never have used exclamation points.

Has Corgan returned again to save rock and roll? Probably not. For all of its sonic brillance (and sonic is the word here) there are a few rough spots. Ride the Black Swan feels like a MACHINA outtake and Corgan seems to be simultaneously channeling Adore and Pink Floyd with the flaccid Jesus I/Mary Star of the Sea but twelve out of 14 ain’t bad, so I’m willing to overlook those two stinkers if you promise to let me listen to Settle Down one more time. Ignore the fact the Honestly is on TRL on go buy this album now.