The Smashing Pumpkins
Aghori Mhori Mei
After 2023’s epic, ambitious, and bloated 2 ½ hour marathon of a listening experience called ATUM, The Smashing Pumpkins have somewhat returned to their ’90s-era form with Aghori Mhori Mei.
While the former behemoth of an album felt like a doctoral dissertation in Fantasy Lit Studies set to music (footnotes, index, and bibliography included), Aghori Mhori Mei feels like a series of tightly argued essays. While quite good, the album doesn’t reach the heights of greatness that one would hope for a band that seems to be finding its footing again. When the band does feel like it’s hitting its stride, it’s because the elements that made The Pumpkins such a powerhouse band back in the day are there. A case in point is the album opener “Edin” which starts with a dissonant quiet guitar riff that explodes into a full-on fist pump-fest that sounds more like something from Pearl Jam’s Ten. But instead of riding that wave, the band has the good sense to vary the tempo throughout making it more of a prog journey about…well, it’s not entirely clear. There are mentions of flames engulfing, tears in heaven, transmuting graves with radio waves. Perhaps it’s an overture in a lyrical sense, but from a pure primal rockin’ out sense, “Edin” is fantastic. You can really feel the band locking into a groove that feels like The Smashing Pumpkins are making music as a band again.
The dissonant theme continues on the second track “Pentagrams” where, like the album opener, is a heavy rocker. It’s still a question mark as to what Billy Corgan is trying to say with word salad lyrics like “labyrinth milk syringe,” but it’s okay if you’re more moved by the music than the words being sung. Indeed, I’ve been trying not to get lost in divining meaning from the minutiae of the lyrics, but hazarding a guess as to what this album is about leads me to think Corgan is struggling with a kind of mystical, if not religious, exploration of lightness and darkness. There are moments when Corgan ditches the lyrical opacity for a more straight-ahead approach on “Who Goes There,” or goes for a radio-friendly song like “Goeth The Fall.” But the left turn the album makes is on closer “Murnau” – which owes more musically to Pink Floyd than the ‘90s-era grunge that The Pumpkins came out of — signals that this band is still progressing.
Overall, Aghori Mhori Mei is a wonderful and welcome return to the sound and feel that made The Smashing Pumpkins so great. Sure, for a long time, they lost their way, but on this album, it sure feels like the return of the alternative rock prodigal sons.
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