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No one can accuse William Patrick Corgan of skimping on lore. Hes produced reams of it as abandmate,interviewee,blogger,Infowars guest,wrestling impresario, andtea-shop proprietor. His musical output with theSmashing Pumpkins is also lore-heavy, albeit haphazard: The bands album discography has both aVol. 1 without aVol. 2 and aII without aI. ThatII, however, was a turning point for the Pumpkins, as Corgan (a notoriously prolific writer whoseB-sides have shipped platinum) began setting formats and concepts loose upon each other. A singles campaignbecame an album; an albumbecame an album within an album; that outermost albumbecame an abandoned project. WithATUM: A Rock Opera in Three Acts, Corgan raises the stakes. Hes pitched it as the third in a retconned trilogy of concept albums that began with 1995sMellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and continued with 2000sMachina/The Machines of God.

Corgans previous attempts to castMellon andMachina as something more than good-to-magnificent alt-rock albumshe once teasedMellon Collie asThe Wall for Gen Xers, and recruitedprofessional animators andamateur sleuths to flesh out the story ofMachinawere, in wrestling terms, a work. But onATUM(pronounced, maddeningly, like the season) he sells the storyline like never before. The cover art suggests a space-rock album illustrated by Roger Dean; the stuffy subtitle places it in the distinguished lineage of CorgansbelovedSavatage. Over 33 songs and two-plus hours, he presents the saga of Shiny, a has-been rocker (and incarnation of a character known onMachina as Glass, and onMellon Collie as Zero) exiled into space for unspecified thoughtcrimes. As Shiny makes his unexpected return to Earth, a cadre of admirers and hackers desperately tries to remind the public of his significance, while the perfidious ruling class schemes to co-opt him for its own ends.

The full story is sketched out inATUMs lyric handbook, but throughout this albums protracted rollout (Part I was released in November,Part II in January), Corgan has been recapping the narrative on his debut podcast.Thirty-Three combines buzzy guests likeWillow Smith and the voice of Roger Rabbit with Corgans Twitter Blue-grade takes on current events. When discussingATUM with his solicitous co-hostsboth employees of the Corgan-owned National Wrestling AllianceCorgan lavished far more attention on the text than the compositions.

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All that extracurricular effort is necessary, because almost none of the narrative makes it to the actual recording. Even the larger plot pointsor just thecharactersof Corgans techno-libertarian saga are submerged at a level below subtext. Always inclined toward quaint turns of phrase, hes reached a syntactical point of no return. His couplets scan like palindromes extracted from Coheed and Cambria lyrics.In parried odes to thy mountains/The spirit of us was pungent laughter, he declares on Intergalactic. On the squelchy, plaintive Night Waves, he muses, Are we null at keel/Where mistakes appeal? Oh shit, are we?

The result is a rock opera that coasts on vibes. Sometimes that vibe is simplyMuse, as on the bombastic, backing vocalist-heavy Empires or That Which Animates the Spirit. Other times, it is unexpectedly peculiar. Hooray! is squelchy high-plains Hi-NRG, replete with Syndrum hits and an organ tone I last encountered on theCarrie Cleveland reissue. Within the story ofATUM, its performed by an animatronic band in a shuttered amusement park. (Discussing the song on the podcast, one of Corgans co-hosts asked himin all innocenceIs there a part of you that had an experience at anamusement park?) The song is followed by the yearning synth-pop of The Gold Mask, which successfully lashesFuture Islands to the delay effect from I Ran (So Far Away). Doomy power ballad The Culling rides a slide guitar solo into a three-way conversation between Moog, soaring wordless vocals, and some of Jimmy Chamberlins most dramatic drumming.

Chamberlin gets his best opportunities to show out duringATUMs final act, the sets proggiest. The pace slows; the songs creep past the five-minute mark. It feels like Corgan and company are savoring their stroll to the finish, or maybe straining to leave a good impression. But this section stretches more than it soars and relies on invocation as a dramatic effect. Theres something fascinating, I suppose, in Corgan hollering Zero! Zero! Zero! like its a Saturday-morning superhero cartoon theme. But what do we get out of him whining Glory glory, hallelujah? Or Agnus Dei? (For fans of Pumpkins pronunciation, we get a deus ex machina sung likedo sex machine.) Its a relief when they invoke Zero asa song instead of a callback: Theres as much fun to be had in the oompah thrash of Harmageddon or the sighing groove metal of In Lieu of Failure as in the transparently goofy Hooray!

The stylistic flexes are enjoyable, but the bulk ofATUM is aimed squarely at modern rock radio. If youre familiar with 2020sCYR, you know the drill: streamlined synth-rock, only this time Chamberlins not platooning with an 808. Even so, the formula produces pleasures. Chamberlin stomps around Corgans sequencer on Neophyte, turning the singers rueful trudge into a disco strut. Its almost as bold a choice as Corgan pronouncing the phrase Philistine or Elohim so it doesnt rhyme. Penultimate track Spellbinding resolves the meter-shifting dream-pop pulse of its verses with a fist-pumping power pop chorus. Take me away/Im going to find you! Corgan cries, trailed by a nice little .38 Special twin-guitar sting. To the Grays plays like a keening, synth-spangled take on Dancing in the Dark: The snare sound is more wack and there are a couple more references to burning fields of cosmic space. But the nervy pulse is there, and so is the romanticism, which is the true echo of the Pumpkins older work.

ATUM doesnt necessarily suffer by comparison to past albums. Its highs are more modest. The ferocity is long gone. (At the end of the saga, having riled up allies and enemies alike, Shiny yeets himself back into space.) But in its own ponderous way, it is generous. And anyway, comparisons to past albums are kind of a Smashing Pumpkins trademark: Corgan has alreadyannounced that the bands next project will be a straight up rocknroll record in the vein ofSiamese Dream and, um,Mellon Collie. Perhaps the release of a fully realizedif obliquely writtenrock opera has freed him from the gravitational pull of conceptualism. That, more than anything, would guaranteeATUMs place in Smashing Pumpkins lore.

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The Smashing Pumpkins: ATUM Album Review - Pitchfork