EDT Jann Wenner and Bruce Springsteen pose together backstage before discussing the Rolling Stone magazine co-founder’s new memoir. Best of all are “The Canary Trainer” and “Cenotaph” - the former a goth-tinged mid-tempo track that sounds like a collision between The Cure and The Church, and the latter an intimate acoustic ballad colored by moody synth squiggles. Review by Chris Klimek Septemat 9:55 a.m. And the nine-minute epic “Intergalactic” twice builds from a brooding electro pulse into a dramatic rock assault led by the rampaging drums of Jimmy Chamberlin, who sounds as powerful as ever here and on the more straight-ahead rock tracks “In Lieu of Failure,” “Harmageddon” and “Spellbinding”. “Pacer” goes hard into eighties territory, with glacial synth textures that eventually give way to a Giorgio Moroder-esque dance groove. With its synth strings and yacht-rock chords, the lengthy opener “Sojourner” could be a direct descendant of Gary Wright’s spacy mid-seventies keyboard opus The Dream Weaver. It is, however, also the most synth-heavy of the three acts, which means that Pumpkins fans still clinging tightly to the memory of the guitar-heavy onslaughts of 1991’s Gish or 1993’s Siamese Dream may find it disappointing, or even downright infuriating.īut if you can hang with Corgan’s flights of electronic fancy, ATUM: Act Three contains no shortage of highlights. Though considerably longer than either of the two previous installments, Act Three is the easiest to take in at first listen more varied in tone, tempo and atmosphere, Act Three breathes in a way that its densely packed predecessors don’t. Act One was released in November 2022, Act Two in January 2023, and Act Three was finally released last week. ![]() Of course, a 33-song album totaling nearly two hours and twenty minutes would be a lot to digest for even the most adoring Pumpkins fans, so Corgan wisely decided to premiere ATUM’s songs one at a time via his weekly podcast, and split the album’s official release into three 11-song segments. However tortured Corgan may seem at times, it’s clear that his demons do not manifest in the form of writer’s block. Even while putting the finishing touches on Cyr, the Smashing Pumpkins’ 20-song 2020 release, Corgan was already deep into crafting ATUM: A Rock Opera in Three Acts, a 33-song trilogy he described as a sequel to 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and 2000’s Machina/The Machines of God. Say what you like about Billy Corgan–and, let’s be honest, you could say quite a bit– you’ve gotta give the man props for his tireless work ethic and relentless creative energy.
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