Album: The Smashing Pumpkins - 'Oceania'

ManDown

Release Date: June 19th, 2012

Tracks:
1. "Quasar"
2. "Panopticon"
3. "The Celestials"
4. "Violet Rays"
5. "My Love Is Winter"
6. "One Diamond, One Heart"
7. "Pinwheels"
8. "Oceania"
9. "Pale Horse"
10. "The Chimera"
11. "Glissandra"
12. "Inkless"
13. "Wildflower"

It's on iTunes now!

jqnetto

Great album.

ManDown

Quote:

The Boston Phoenix - 4/4 Stars:

Billy Corgan's ego alone has probably gone triple-platinum, and he's never been afraid of calling himself a genius (even while promoting skanky, mediocre albums like Machina and Zeitgeist). It's so easy to get distracted by his rock-tabloid caricature that you're forgiven for forgetting that, once upon a time, the guy was a musical genius: there hasn't been a better one-two punch in rock and roll since Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the Infiniite Sadness. On Oceania, the band's (unexpectedly) jaw-dropping ninth studio album (a stand-alone movement within the ongoing, song-at-a-time series Teargarden by Kaleidyscope), Corgan finally sounds comfortable being himself again — and that reinvigorated confidence results in the year's most outstanding rock album. Oceania is vintage Pumpkins given a modern sheen: it's more synth, less snarl; more hook than hodgepodge. On proggy epics like "Quasar" and "Panopticon," Corgan seems determined to remind the universe he's one of its greatest guitarists. He succeeds, with nuclear assaults of wah-wah and phaser igniting over Mike Byrne's snare-heavy blasts. "The Celestials" opens in a "Disarm"-esque acoustic shimmer before exploding into a trademark arena-goth chorus. "Don't let the summer get you down," Corgan sings, with all the cheery seasonal pep of a vampire. That's our brilliant Billy Corgan, and it's wonderful to have him back.

Quote:

Chicaco Tribute - 3.5/4 Stars:

The Smashing Pumpkins have been in the musical conversation the last decade as more of an influence than a vital contemporary force. Yet Billy Corgan has resisted the financial incentive to become simply an oldies act. Instead since the demise of the Pumpkins Mach I he’s experimented with new bands (the ill-fated Zwan), solo projects (the 2005 synth-pop release, "The Future Embrace"), a partial reunion of the ‘90s Pumpkins (the 2007 "Zeitgeist" with Jimmy Chamberlin on drums), and a series of on-line releases by the new Pumpkins (the ongoing "Teargarden by Kaleidyscope"). Some had their moments, none has made much of an impact.

Now the first Pumpkins album in five years arrives, "Oceania" (EMI). It's Corgan with a relatively new but road-tested band: Corgan plus drummer Mike Byrne, bassist Nicole Fiorentino and guitarist Jeff Schroeder. A 2011 tour saw the quartet coalesce into something promising, with a batch of strong new songs. Several of those tracks anchor "Oceania," which adds up to Corgan's best work since the '90s.

The big themes are vaguely spiritual, encompassing notions of enlightenment, self-knowledge, love. These interests can be traced all the way back to the Pumpkins’ first album, “gish” (1991), with its rich, religious lyrical imagery and artwork. Corgan has always been a hit-and-miss lyricist, darn near poetic in his best moments, clumsy in his worst, and “Oceania” contains examples of both (let the grumbling begin about lines such as “I’m gonna love you 101 percent”). But the notion of spiritual quest isn’t a bad theme for a mid-life album – it allows for a voice that is not only credible but can age gracefully. “It takes some life to find the light within,” Corgan sings on “The Chimera.” He should know.

Corgan is most articulate as an arranger of sounds, and "Oceania” paints on a big canvas, from the heavy metal churn of “The Chimera” to the keyboard pop of “One Diamond, One Heart.” The guitars crash in mighty waves on the opening one-two of “Quasar” and “Panopticon.” They charge, recede, surge and spiral in a ballet of dynamics that echoes the glories of prime Pumpkins. "The Celestials" builds a melancholy mood out of acoustic guitar and Mellotron, a vintage keyboard that approximates the sounds of a wobbly orchestra.

Corgan’s keyboard colors are especially vital to setting the album’s tone, as are his incorporation of vocal harmonies, featuring bassist Fiorentino. The chamber-rock of the exquisite “Pinwheels,” the nine-minute title song and the hypnotic “Pale Horse” create a three-song world within the album, a part of the journey that revisits the introspective terrain of the hugely underrated 1998 Pumpkins album “Adore.” For once the comparisons to ‘90s Pumpkins don’t ring hollow.

Quote:

BBC Music - 4/5 Stars:

There are few groups in modern music that testify to the power that is the name of a band to quite the degree of The Smashing Pumpkins. The group’s legion of devoted and attentive fans know that Oceania is really the work of one man: they know that Billy Corgan writes all the songs, they know that in the studio he plays many of the instruments, they know that he’s responsible for the hiring and the firing of those with whom he chooses to share a stage.

They also know that, of the line-up that recorded what the cognoscenti believe to be the group’s classic albums (1993’s Siamese Dream and 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness), only Corgan remains. But when this enigmatic and often brilliant writer places his name to a solo album, as he did on 2005’s TheFutureEmbrace, few people care. Make it a Smashing Pumpkins release, however, and the power of band as brand kicks into gear.

Corgan himself is unusually candid when he says, “I know I wrote more great songs by the pound in the years 1992 to 1997 than I have in the past five years,” but he is also correct when he observes that “that doesn’t mean that I still can’t write a great song.” On Oceania, he has written a number of great songs. On a first listen, though, this is not immediately apparent. Of late, The Smashing Pumpkins have not been a band to emphasise their more accessible elements, preferring instead to test the listener’s commitment with layers of electronics and melodies carried only by Corgan’s deliberately fragile and nasal voice.

Give it time, though, and the bald truth becomes evident: you just can’t keep a good song down. In a just world, this album’s title-track and compositions such as My Love Is Winter will be seen as the work of a man still equipped with a sense of direction, a writer determined not to fit the hole into which his detractors wish to hammer him. Straddling the line between art and commerce, between arena rock and cult devotion, for the first time in quite a while Billy Corgan and The Smashing Pumpkins sound energised and alive.

Quote:

Boston Globe - 4/5 Stars:

“Oceania” is the Smashing Pumpkins album that people hoped for more than a decade ago. Instead, Head Pumpkin Billy Corgan screwed with his own brand, creating muddled records in the aftermath of alt-rock cornerstones “Siamese Dream” and “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.” A few years ago, Corgan rebuilt the band with new members and finally marshals them through a solid hour of grandiose guitar rock. “Oceania” has a beatific glow with recurring spiritual themes and appeals to higher love. Corgan is still a prickly misfit, but dealing with it better, giving us such Corganisms as “You don’t deserve me / but I deserve you.” A classic-rock guy at heart, Corgan occasionally emulates Pink Floyd and the Who; but overall the Pumpkins leave an original stamp on this package. The washes of guitar buzz, the mood-setting deployments of strings and acoustic strums, and colorful bursts of keyboard noodling that the Pumpkins sprinkle throughout the album all gather together in the epic title track. It’s nice to hear Corgan doing what he does best, even if it’s late in the coming. (Out Tuesday)

ESSENTIAL: “Pinwheels”

Some of the best reviews.

Also, it currently has a score of 72 on Metacritic.

Red

The lack of talk about this album is criminal. Then again, it's seemingly happening everywhere.

I haven't listened to the album in full yet (it'll happen soon, though), but "Quasar" is freaking AMAZING stuff, and everything else I've heard is great stuff. I really wish this had been the comeback album and not Zeitgeist. I bet Billy wishes it was, too.

ManDown

Quote:

Originally posted by Red

The lack of talk about this album is criminal. Then again, it's seemingly happening everywhere.

I haven't listened to the album in full yet (it'll happen soon, though), but "Quasar" is freaking AMAZING stuff, and everything else I've heard is great stuff. I really wish this had been the comeback album and not Zeitgeist. I bet Billy wishes it was, too.

Right?!

You must listen to it! Every song is great. And I agree that it should have been their comeback album.

It'll be interesting to see the final first week sales.

JDM

Top ten debut on Billboard with no official lead single. Radio stations seem to be picking up "The Celestials", but I think "My Love Is Winter" is a better choice for unsolicited airplay. My favorite song is probably the title track. Unfortunately, there will be many people who dismiss the new material because it's not the original lineup. The Smashing Pumpkins, to me, is Billy Corgan, and sometimes that's just the way it is. Great album; easily better than Zeitgeist, which admittedly, has grown on me since 2007.

Red

Quote:

Originally posted by ManDown

Right?!

You must listen to it! Every song is great. And I agree that it should have been their comeback album.

It'll be interesting to see the final first week sales.

I did get around to listening to it, and it's safe to say that mind = BLOWN.

"My Love Is Winter", "The Chimera", "Oceania", "Pinwheels", "Panopticon", the aforementioned "Quasar", "The Celestials", "Wildflower"...so many great songs. It's a shame that this is going so unnoticed. It's probably my album of the year, at the moment.