Reviews

The Smashing Pumpkins did not smash their new album

Lily Howard, People Editor|May 19, 2023

On May 5, American rock band The Smashing Pumpkins released Act III of their trilogy album ATUM: A Rock Opera in Three Acts. Act I was previously released on Nov 5 2022, and Act II was released on Jan 31. The album consists of 33 songs, totaling 2 hours and 18 minutes.

ATUM would be a good album for anyone who is more into techno- indie songs, rather than rock and alternative which The Smashing Pumpkins previous albums have followed. The songs in this album feel more mellow and amicable.

Despite this, this album wasn’t my favorite of theirs. I did like some of the songs such as “Embracer” and “The good in Goodbye”. These songs had a similar style to some of their other albums that I really enjoyed.

Although I do really like The Smashing Pumpkins, if someone asked me for recommendations I would reply with their other albums such as Siamese Dream, Adore, or Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. After listening to the rock style songs for so long, it was pretty disappointing hearing their new songs.

“This album felt like Billy Corgan was trying to take his new ‘rock opera,’ if you can even call it that, and turn it into a synthpop and sound like New Order” when he could have been sounding like ‘The Pesh Mode’. It would have sounded a lot better,” freshman Oliver Dreznick said.

I didn’t even want to finish listening to all the sounds on the album because they were so different from the usual style that I was hoping for.

“

It was just not a fun album to listen to. It felt like a chore to get through it.

— Oliver Dreznick, freshman

“It was just not a fun album to listen to. It felt like a chore to get through it,” freshman Oliver Dreznick said.

Despite a few good songs, overall I don’t think this album was anywhere close to their best work. I hope that any future album is closer to their older aesthetic because it would be much more enjoyable to listen to.