Smashing Pumpkins
Siamese Dream

THE REVIEW

Shortly after the release of the sensational debut album "Gish", the career of the Smashing Pumpkins already seems to have reached its end: drummer Jimmy Chamberlain is entangled in drug problems, guitarist James Iha and bassist D'Arcy Wretzky can't stand each other anymore, and leader Billy Corgan is in a state of deep depression. He will be the first not to give up: he locks himself in the recording studios, playing all the instrumental tracks (except for the percussion), writing all the lyrics, and making the work as perfect as possible. When the others returned to the group, they found a product already ready, the reviewed "Siamese Dream".

Compared to the debut album, the sound of this album is much more compact and current: you can hear echoes of grunge, hardcore, noise, and a hint of psychedelia and new wave, all blended into 13 perfect tracks where melody and noise alternate fluidly and incredibly satisfyingly.

The snare drum, followed closely by the other instruments, introduces us to "Cherub Rock", a track that immediately makes clear what we will be facing from now on: melodic interweaving of distorted guitars, fast progressions splendidly directed by the drums, and solos bordering on noise. The hard "Quiet", slower and characterized by a fantastic background of hyper-distorted guitars, follows next; the lyrics seem the antithesis of the music: "Quiet / I am sleeping". The third track is one of the band's most famous: "Today". Listening to the initial arpeggio, it seems like a sweet ballad, but it soon transforms into another quite hard track, with a catchy and immediate chorus. The pace slows a bit with "Hummer", in whose central part you are transported far away by the psychedelic atmosphere created by the bass and guitar. "Rocket" retraces the paths already set by the initial triad; quite different is the very sad "Disarm", a ballad dominated by acoustic guitar, violin, and the tolling of bells, whose lyrics say: "Disarm you with a smile/ And leave you like they left me here/ To wither in denial/ The bitterness of one who's left alone". Heart-wrenching.

"Soma" starts slowly and calmly but gradually grows into another rock anthem with one of the best solos of the entire album. After the frontal assault of "Geek U.S.A. ", come two tracks very similar in the atmosphere they create, both dedicated to Corgan's relatives: the very sweet "Mayonaise" dedicated to his mother (the first of a long series), and the acoustic "Spaceboy" written for his autistic brother. The longest track on the album, "Silverfuck" (8.44 min) is the most elusive on the album: the verses where only the snare drums are heard alternate with the angry chorus, which in turn becomes a sort of bacchanal for Iha's feedback-heavy solos. In the central part, Corgan's filtered voice dominates, exclaiming "Bang bang you're dead / Hole in your head" before the return of the chorus and another hardcore progression before the end. After the less than 2 minutes of "Sweet Sweet", "Luna" closes, a sweet and calm love ballad.

In my opinion, "Siamese Dream" is the zenith of Smashing Pumpkins' career, far from the exaggerated grandiosity of "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness", but, on the contrary, more sincere and humble.

RATING = 9