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Rating: One might wonder what drives a mature and talented rockstar to embark on such an adventure.
A triple album, declared no less than the closure of a trilogy, comprising an absolute masterpiece and an excellent album, infused with the most disparate and improbable sounds and with themes incomprehensible to most. One might almost feel like applauding it, because this obstinate and contrary direction is commendable in its own way.
I don't think even the most radical fan would call it a successful album: too dispersed, diluted, heterogeneous...and then those damned synthetic sounds, a legacy of the first solo album of which it seems impossible to give up. I listened through the entire work with difficulty, not enough (but is there anyone capable of doing so?) to comprehend it in its entirety, but enough to understand what I liked and what I didn't, and listening on Spotify facilitated the creation of something I've always detested: the playlist.
It's now been days that I've been lost in listening to the 14 selected tracks out of the total 33, and it pains me to say that it would have been enough to take a step back to publish the best work of Smashing Pumpkins in the last twenty years. Remaining honest and detached, I'd also have produced this subset of songs differently. Listen to The Gold Mask, an extraordinary melodic intuition, mortified by an arrangement almost like a record label demo. And then there are the necessary exceptions. The tailored fit of Every Morning and The Canary Trainer is absolutely spot-on, perhaps by pure chance because when he delves into his personal vision of new wave Billy Corgan can still be number one.
As you'll see at the end of this brief piece, among the saved songs there isn't the gaudy single Empire. While credit must be given that Beyond The Vale and Beguiled are two rock outbursts like we haven't heard in a long time on Smashing Pumpkins' albums. And finally, a few scattered gems here and there, like the intense Cenotaph, ATUM with its beautiful electric guitar solo, and the acoustic and intimate Springtimes.
We've reached the playlist. Pardon me for the operation:
ATUM, Embracer, Beyond The Vale, The Gold Mask, Neophyte, Every Morning, To The Grays, Beguiled, Springtimes, Sojourner, The Canary Trainer, Cenotaph, Harmageddon, SpellBinding.
Tracklist
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