Billy's guitar on this album makes me want to touch myself. It's so incredible, at times beautiful and bizarre. The lengthy solo on the title track blows my mind. If the vocals and other instruments were removed, I'd still play this album more than once a week to listen to that guitar. Totally boss. : )

Saw this setup at ozzfest one year. Was great to see Billy do his thing. Good album!

I think this album is amazing, and that it is very underrated. I also think people overlook this album and band as just a "failed" side project, when really it is much more than that. It is an amazing album with beautiful songs spanning across the entire disc. Well Done to all the members of Zwan.

Even though i didn't listen to the entire albulm "honestly" it was a warmhearted attempet to keep the pumpkins fans satisfied,and it delivered.Zwan for me was a success but if i had to choose i'd rather have the pumpkins,and im glad its that way today.Of course i wouldn't mind a second albulm just for the hell of it

This album is quite the interesting one indeed. People told me "Zwan is horrible" but becuase I knew billies track record, I figured I would buy this anyway. To my surprise, Zwan is not as different from Smashing Pumpkins as people would like to think. The best way I can describe this album is "Smashing Pumpkins gone happy with a twist of Christianity." But, it isn't Christian rock at all. All I can say is but it, its really an underated album. But, its good that the band was short lived because Smashing Pumpkins would not have been reborn.

... Is Definitly this album. It's my happy take in the car type family album when Mellon Collie was my sit in the darkened room listentomesoloudyourearsbleed album. I wish this got more recognition from non Pumpkins fans as to the real beauty of it. It's a one liner heaven and I'm sure when I saw the pumpkins the other night Billy put a few Zwan guitar licks in some of their Jamming/soloing is a couple pf tracks.

I love Mary/Star of the Sea.

From begining to end, this one is a real treat. I think all of the haters out there were waiting for another out of the box SP album, but instead they got Mellon Collie on Extacy. Full of one liners, and corny cliches, as long as you can stomach them, Im sure you'll love this diamond in the rough.

Time was I could play air guitar to the whole of "Jesus I/Mary Star of the Sea". All 14 minutes of it.
I don't really listen to this album anymore, but when it came out (those many aeons ago) it was FUN! Brilliant guitar solos, catchy riffs and melodies, songs about sunshine and summer and buttering Billy Corgan's toast! What more could you want? Even the extra DVD was a laugh, especially Matt Sweeney's comic-cryptic attempts to categorise Djali Zwan. It was a shame that the whole thing fell apart, but it made a kind of sense - "Mary Star of the Sea" felt like a one-off album. You can only have so much sunshine.

can't get enough of some of these songs, El Sol, Honestly, Endless Summer... seeing them live in Toronto was awesome, I met all the members... Billy Corgan has always been there on the best days of my life, I let him know once and he said thank you ( :

it's a good album as long as you appreciate it outside the smashing pumpkins context. i think people underrate the beauty of this album because they stigmatized billy as someone who only comes up with smashing pumpkins songs, which i personally think this album deviates from (with the exception of jesus, i/mary star of the sea and of a broken heart).

it's catchy, fun and easy to listen to as can be observed in the songs lyric, honestly and come with me. it also has the profoundity which we are all accustomed of from billy as can be seen in the songs desire and of a broken heart. and unfotunately, it has its share of not-so-striking to the point of being cheesy songs like settle down and baby let's rock! (well that's just me). it also has beautiful guitar riffs for a pop album.

it's the type of album that you play on a sunday afternoon to have a dose of positivity. it's good considering that it's a pop album and yet it's not like the typical pop materials (confusing you say? well it's my review so deal with it). my personal favorites are lyric, of a broken heart, desire and jesus, i/mary star of the sea.

This album is great. it shows a really nice, bouncy side to billy corgan's songwriting, the line from El Sol sums this lighthearted feel:
'all i wanted was to hold you close, a little sunshine just to butter my toast!'. i can rave on about every song on this album. don't expect a pumpkins cd, it is rock but zwan was its own band. also check out that Djali Zwan stuff, it is very beautiful, check the unofficial Spun soundtrack.

and this link is hillarious, it is zwan on a crap uk tv show that normally just played pop, they take the piss out of the mime! memories of nirvana on top of the pops, heres the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWKvWpbA_ZU

watch it! and if you dont have 'mary star..' then get it now!

It's beautiful. Zwan has a different sound to the songs (cause it's another band? haha), and is absolutely wonderful to listen to. Whatever Corgan is invovled in writing/creating turns out beautiful and abnormally REAL. Zwan may not have been better than Pumpkins, but still wonderful! Yes, I do admire Billy, whatever he's choosing to do.

Just like everybody I was wondering if I would like Zwan just as much as SP. I was surprised at how much I really liked it! Great songs, beautiful lyrics. I liked the alternative sound of it and was happy that it was different than the classic SP sound. Afterall it should sound different because it is a different band. Kudos to Billy and the crew, I still love listening to it on a regular basis.

Of course I probably would like anything that Billy was involved with because he is just that good.

When Mary Star of the Sea was first released, I have to admit I was disappointed. After following the band and their different incarnations for over a year previous, and being blown away by their triple-guitar attack, not to mention the intimate Djali Zwan performances in Grand Rapids and Indy in December of 2001, I had extremely high expectations for this album, but I felt the album lacked some of those other aspects of Zwan, namely their acoustic Djali Zwan material. To be fair, a live Djali album was in the pipeline for 2004, but the band broke up before they had the chance to record it. I think the two albums taken together would have painted a more complete picture of Zwan. However, listening to Mary Star now, and taking it for what it is, a True Poets of Zwan rock album, it is a very good album. There's some very good guitar driven pop songs such as Honestly, Yeah, and Endless Summer; the latter which I believe to be the catchiest song on the album, and should have been their second single instead of Lyric. But it's Jesus, I/Mary Star of the Sea that makes this album worth the purchase. Jesus, I is driven by bouncing, interweaving, curlicue guitar riffs from Pajo and Sweeney.... that is....until Billy comes busting thru, amp turned to 11, and proceeds to FREAK-ING SHA-RED! For like three straight minutes. Ditto for Jimmy's drumming during Mary Star, where he just pummels his drum kit into the ground over that perfect loud-quiet, happy-sad, fuzzed out tone Corgan manages to squeezes out of that guitar of his. 14 minutes of pure prog-rock bliss.

Untill a few moths ago i had never even heard of this band but when i did i was emediatly interested i whent down to the record store to buy the album and knowing my luck they dont sell it in Australia anymore what a bummer so i have resorted to downloading it bit by bit i have lyric, endless summer and yeah! and i love them i know im gonna love the rest YAY