"A double-LP of basic Goth/electro-pop with barely any
guitars or good drumming is exactly what we, The Smashing
Pumpkins, should be doing in the twilight years of our
relevance. Everyone wanted this."
- Billy Corgan, probably
Not entirely sure what Billy and Company were trying to
accomplish with this one. It sounds like a BC solo record
featuring The Smashing Pumpkins - and according to the
band's interviews that's pretty much what it was with minor
contributions from James and others - so what do we have with
CYR? Simply put, this is Billy putting out a contemporary pop
record with the SP name. Gone ALMOST completely is the
powerful dynamic drumming of Jimmy Chamberlin, the
trademarked fuzzed-out guitars of the band's signature style,
and the tense, smoldering anger in Corgan's delivery in the
band's heyday - in comes cold synths, electronic/sampled
beats, bleep bloops, female backup vocals and a whole bunch
of songs that sound a whole lot like Depeche Mode, New Order,
The Cure and other 80s post-punk and New Romantic bands Billy
worships. He always incorporated these influences into the
band's work but this is more or less a pastiche of those
styles emulated to a T, warts and all. Not entirely out of
character but still a rather unwelcome surprise all the same
for most of the band's fans - most of us wanted an actual
return to form that the band failed to deliver on 2018's
Shiny Pt. 1, instead of odd stylistic detours that don't
quite execute properly. Is Billy Corgan taking his cues from
Rivers Cuomo these days on how to deal with his musical
legacy?
There's some good tracks here, like Colour Of Your Love, Anno
Satana, Purple Blood, Save Your Tears, etc - the latter half
is unquestionably stronger, and the singles don't fully
represent the darker aspects of the record, etc... but none
of them rank even in the band's top 50 songs, imo. Not one.
Every track hits around the 3:30-4 minute mark, they're
competently recorded and written - they're just boring and
lazy, Billy finding a formula and beating it into the ground.
He's done stuff like this before and much better in the past
- then, he had a much stronger band, better attention to
detail, better composition and writing. CYR just kinda
exists. There's no deeper layers to find - it's easily
Smashing Pumpkins poppiest and most immediate record to date,
modern production values and all, and what you get is what
you get.
Point is, who WANTED this from SP? Trying new musical avenues
is commendable and nothing new for SP, but this direction
just isn't up to par with their prior work in quality, and
definitely didn't justify a 2xLP. It should be a criminal act
to go 3 albums under-utilizing a drummer like Jimmy
Chamberlin the way they have since the reunion, ffs. Billy
claims that this is the Smashing Pumpkins "firing on all
cylinders again" after the reunion, and while this certainly
IS a Smashing Pumpkins record through and through, it's a
really weak one. Better than Shiny, but only just. No, it's
nothing like Adore and nowhere near the level of quality,
that album had real soul and character, expanding the band's
musical horizons while still retaining what made SP great.
CYR is a product that does what it says on the packaging -
deliver a double album of competent, inoffensive and pleasant
songs that don't challenge you much.
4 Bumps | Bump |
