Reviews

The Smashing Pumpkins – Zeitgeist

The seventh Smashing Pumpkins record is a mixed bag, with soaring highs and a few embarrassing lows.

2007

From the Archive

Review by Tom Lee

Originally published 24 July 2007.

I’m not sure whether an album from a revived Smashing Pumpkins is making me feel old for a reason. It’s been noticeably less than ten years. Since the Pixies, all sorts of alternative mega bands have been popping their heads up. Of course, it’s debatable if this is a Pumpkins album at all, as Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin are the only familiar faces. The fact that both are collectively responsible for a huge amount of the band’s back catalogue is undeniable, though.

Zeitgeist is a mixed bag that neither confounds nor disappoints. “Doomsday Clock” seems like a pretty emphatic statement of Corgan’s intent to have a familiar situation back. It could be heavy Mellon Collie, and evokes a cod apocalypse well. “Bleeding the Orchid” has the decaying, whirring arrogance of earlier moments. There’s something of Echo and the Bunnymen and Jehovahkill-era Cope in the song’s balance of generalised pomp pronouncements and grinding epic rock. The image of “milk from the flower, blood from the dawn” slots in without embarrassment. “That’s the Way (My Love Is)” may be a Siamese Dream clone. Listening makes me realise that it approximates one of the best albums ever, and that’s far better than generic jilting indie with stylishly bad hair. There’s quite a bit of Robert Smith in the wistfulness too.

Worst-artwork-of-all-time single “Tarantula” could be an obvious point to My Chemical Romance fans. It’s one the song’s author has every right to make, but I’ve always been less keen on the Pumpkins’ Dragonball Z moments. Similarly, “Starz” echoes “Zero” updated for a glossier, foreboding time of publication. We’re pointed to an “island of white noise,” and “Dead suns rule dead air.” “United States” has common ground with both Wishbone Ash and Cave In, for better and worse in both cases. “Neverlost” picks up the gauntlet from Machina’s... ballads, with spacey and ponderous effect. The ability to lend the undefined serious emotional gravitas has carried over, and time and desire are balanced like the saddest things in the world.

“Bring the Light” reminds me of Blind Faith in suitably ponderous fashion. “Come on Let’s Go” rocks like Zwan with the polish of prime Cream, and sounds wonderful, ridiculous and fun as a result. If Corgan is “anaesthetised” and “playing to the dark back row”, it’s from a huge stage with killer equipment. “For God and Country” reminds me of Enya and Prince gone very wrong. “Pomp and Circumstances” closes like Adore mixed with 10CC. It’s completely impossible to take seriously, and very endearing. The string of consciousness stating, “We can fail in style. I can hold your smile. For a While,” is pretty much the best assessment of Zeitgeist I can imagine.

An intermittently brilliant flawed album from someone with the potential to be amazing still stands out over vaguely pleasant mediocrity and boring lad rock. There are occasional moments here that I’d rate 4/10, but they’re well overbalanced by several 9/10’s. The debate whether this is a Pumpkins album is a fair one, but doesn’t define its worth. Crucially, Zeitgeist is the sound of one of the more interesting commercially successful songwriters of the last decade back to playing in type. Warts and all, he’s still worth more than any number of Pigeon Detectives.

Zeitgeist was released on 9 July 2007 via Reprise.