THE SMASHING PUMPKINS: Aghori Mhori Mei (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Released in digital and physical versions respectively on August 2 and November 22 of this year, a little over a year after the rock opera “Atum” (released in three instalments, in 2022-2023), the enigmatically-titled album “Aghori Mhori Mei” (10 tracks only) can be seen as an attempt by the Smashing Pumpkins' historic trio (Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin) to return to the band's rock roots that earned them international fame in the 1990s.

Indeed, when you listen to this 13th studio album, you immediately think of the band's two flagship records, “Siamese Dream” and the double album “Mellon Collie and the Infinitive Sadness”, although the tone of the album is very different here. Billy Corgan has endeavored here to return to the spirit that presided over the making of those albums, which was, in the singer and band founder's own words, like rediscovering a hotbed of creativity that was perhaps just waiting to be brought up to date.

Nostalgic though the album is, it's not the Smashing Pumpkins of the mid-1990s, but the Smashing Pumpkins of 2024 that can be heard: the world is clearly not the same as it was thirty years ago, the way we make and listen to music has profoundly evolved, and on a personal level, the band members now have a family life (Billy remarried in 2023 to fashion designer Chloe Mendel, with whom he has two children). The Smashing Pumpkins of today offer a version of themselves that is undoubtedly more mellowed and softened than in the past, although they have lost none of their familiar verve and inventiveness.

Musically, the electro-pop influences present on some previous albums have been relegated here in favor of heavier guitars ('Edin', '999'), sometimes reminiscent of Black Sabbath or Accept, two heavy metal bands revered by Billy Corgan. In this respect, the album follows on from the heavier tracks on “Atum”, such as “Beguiled”). The mid-tempo ballads of which the Smashing Pumpkins are famous (think of their famous '1979') are not absent from the album, as evidenced by the track 'Goeth The Fall', where the band's signature is clearly recognizable. It's also worth noting that the excellent and invigorating 'Sighommi' (which comes just after the no less excellent 'Edin' and 'Pentagrams') was chosen by the band as a single, released for the first time on the very day of the album's digital release.

Billy Corgan has often reminded us that he is a guitarist at heart, even before he is a singer or songwriter. It was as a guitarist that he cut his teeth in the musical world, and it's always from the guitar's perspective that he writes his songs. Although not without orchestral elements and soaring tones - well integrated, incidentally, into the whole - 'Aghori Mhori Mei' marks a return to the musical roots of the band and of the artist himself: As Billy Corgan himself points out, the idea behind the album was to challenge the expression “You can't go home again”, knowing full well that you can only recapture the spirit of the past, never bring it back to life as such. - Official website

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS

AGHORI MHORI MEI

AUTRE LABEL

ROCK