Billy Corgan and co are finally back. After a long, but not Guns and Roses-esque, five year wait for a brand new full-length release following 2007s epic 'Zeitgeist' record, we find the Pumpkins in a more able, creative mood than before. After all, when this is billed as an “album within an album”, you have to be going through a process of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks.
'Oceania' is, for those who don't know, only 30% of a forty-four song collection entitled 'Teargarden by Kaleidyscope', and marks the approximate halfway point in that ambitious ongoing project. Part EP-collection, part online download, and part LP, it's an interesting process that few have ever undertaken to this kind of scale before, and one many are interested to see pan out. Here, however, I must narrow down to the brand new thirteen track collection on offer and see what direction these twenty-year veterans are taking these days.
The answer is, by and large, a positive one. Corgans whining vocalisations are very marmite with most. You either think he's a distraught poet, or a whiny fool. There seems to be no middle ground. I tend to find, however that his voice lends a real vulnerability to his music, whether it be a powerhouse opening track filled with crashing and frantic guitars like 'Quasar', or in a more stripped back, simple offering like 'The Celestials'.
Then there is a special “epic within an album within an album”, the nine minute long title track 'Oceania'. This track in particular finds Corgan at his wrought, moody best. The utterly sad lyric “I'm so alone, so alone. Better than a wretched world. Better than a broken pearl” during its first minute really touching home as a powerful piece of wordplay. Dark synths melt into heavy guitar via a small woodwind interlude before suddenly hitting the acoustics via a glockenspiel. It sounds like it shouldn't work, but the track has been crafted so beautifully then not only does it work, but it puts in a fifty hour week without taking any lunch breaks. Anyway, at the halfway point, the acoustic guitars and the surprising whimsy disappear, and the thudding drums and moody synths returns for the second half. Don't get me wrong, putting a nine-minute jigsaw in the middle of an album has been done before. Even Franz Ferdinand have done it, (and, I might say, arguably, surprisingly well.), but this little snippet of the album, including when the crazed electric guitar solo eventually fades out the ending, captures an awful lot of what the Smashing Pumpkins have done over the last twenty years in a fragmented, yet carefully pieced, form.
If you want an immediate album though, this record doesn't work so well. In fact, I found my first listen of this record to almost bore me. As a complete hour long package I didn't immediately connect with it. Much of it is a lot slower and more spaced out than what I would expect a Pumpkins album to be, but with repeated listens, the songs almost evolved into something new and more exciting. Each track on the album is multi-layered, waiting for you to either take the music at face value, or bury further into it, trying to reveal its secrets. At first listen, 'One Diamond, One Heart' just sounds like it doesn't work. A stabby, staccato electric beat, with Billy Corgan wailing over the top of it just sounds like it should be a mess, but after a few listens it opens up and becomes really rather dreamy and wistful. It's a very simple love song at its core, and as a result, it's actually very very good. Also, while I said a lot of what's on offer here is a lot slower than what we may expect, that songs that do pick up the pace do so in typically grungy, heavy fashion. The aforementioned 'Quasar' being a particular example of this, but if you're looking for one song that sounds like a standard Pumpkins “rock” song, then look no further than 'The Chimara'. Locked away near the back of the record, it's 'Doomsday Clock' meets 'Cherub Rock'.
To sum up, this record isn't one for people who like one particular Pumpkins record. This is for people who have found something to cheer about with all of them, from the massive rock smash hit 'Mellon Collie' through to the electronica tinged 'Adore', with some of the more ambitious aspects from the 'Machina' projects thrown in, without forgetting how it all began with 'Gish', Smashing Pumpkins have yet again released a record that intrigues, flows, shows off and, most importantly, rocks.
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'Oceania' is, for those who don't know, only 30% of a forty-four song collection entitled 'Teargarden by Kaleidyscope', and marks the approximate halfway point in that ambitious ongoing project. Part EP-collection, part online download, and part LP, it's an interesting process that few have ever undertaken to this kind of scale before, and one many are interested to see pan out. Here, however, I must narrow down to the brand new thirteen track collection on offer and see what direction these twenty-year veterans are taking these days.
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