I’ve had this album for the past 10 days which allows me to give its proper review.
The last time The Smashing Pumpkin offered up an album was in 2000 with their release of Machina II – The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music. This was a very limited vinyl only release (25 copies made) with instructions to rip it and release it for free on the web. This was definitely a better album than Machina – The Machines of God but in the end, it didn’t matter because the Pumpkins broke up in 2000.
Enter seven years later with the Pumpkins reformed (with Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain) and they have released their new album – Zeitgeist – today.
Zeitgeist is a return to form of hard hitting tunes. Reminiscent of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (which is an excellent move) but it seems more modern. Billy’s tricks of the trade from Adore to The Future Embrace are scattered around the album. There are definitely some heavy hitters for the first half of the album and then the more laid back Future Embrace style rockers.
At first listen, I was thrown aback by the layering of vocals done of the majority of the album. It took away from the rawness of the tracks, which I witnessed while listening to several bootlegs from the Europe tour for the past month. After awhile, the vocal layering grows on me although there are a few tracks where I would prefer it not to appear.
In the end, the album is killer. A true return to form for the Pumpkins. If Mellon Collie was a fork in the road which created Adore and Machina, then Zeitgeist is a return to that fork in the road and taking the other path. I am enjoying this path so far and look forward to the next few years with this album.
Fave tracks at the Moment: Bleeding the Orchid, Tarantula, Starz, United States