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It’s easy to expect what you’re going to get when you play a new Smashing Pumpkins album. They’re the In-n-Out (or whatever your regionally equivalent reliable burger shop is), of the alt-rock world. They seem to continuously release solid albums that evolve and move forward with the rest of the rock world, without sacrificing their sound.
Smashing Pumpkins continues that tradition with their new album Monuments to an Elegy, which released at the end of 2014. It clocks in at just over a half an hour, totaling just nine tracks, but its an efficient thirty minutes. The album covers a lot of ground, flowing seamlessly from funky bass driven rock tracks, to electro heavy tracks, with a healthy dose of distorted guitar mixed in for that Smashing Pumpkins grunge sound we learned to love two decades ago.
Monuments to an Elegy is start to end packed with rock goodness, and standing tall among the pack is the semi-title track Monuments. While the album as a whole teeters along a line of electro infused rock and post-grunge, Monuments leaps over that line and fuses the two sounds in a way that causes confusion on where to place the track. You find yourself wanting to headbang along with the guitar, and then suddenly it falls out and you're left in a technicolor limbo for a moment before the guitar comes back in and gives you a place to stand. It’s a beautiful experience reminiscent of discovering prog rock and falling through a mess of guitars and ambience.
What’s most impressive about this album, is how it’s so reliant on Billy Corgan’s vocals. While the rock heavy tracks like Tiberius, or Anaise!, are easy enough to sink your teeth into, the further from center tracks are held together by Corgan. Every moment you find yourself listening to ambient techno sounds, Corgan comes in and leads you back to what you imagined when you set up for a listen. I cannot imagine another band coming into the scene with an album like this and succeeding, but because of the trust Corgan has created with his unique voice, the listener is carried through an unfamiliar rockscape.
Monuments to an Elegy is a testament to what is good in rock today, and Billy Corgan has laid a great foundation for future rock to continue to grow in interesting new ways. The Smashing Pumpkins are set to release another album this year, and if this is a prelude of what is to come, there are good things on the horizon.
