Album Review: The Smashing Pumpkins – CYR
– By Rob Jones –
I am a proud member of generation X and was around to see the seismic shift the bands of my generation created in the world, Nirvana is unquestionably the biggest band but The Smashing Pumpkins are far and away from the best of the big alternative bands of my generation.
No other bands had as many game-changing albums, and no other band had as successfully diverse of a catalog. Every album they put out is different from the one before it, For those of us who really get this band, the excitement is in the new and the journey that sound takes us on. Their latest album, CYR (pronounced seer) is the most drastically different album they’ve released since my favorite album, Adore.
CYR owes a lot of its inspiration to goth and synth-wave, which interestingly enough is the style of music this band started out playing before they recorded gish, so arguably this album is the truest to the band’s roots.
This double album starts off with “The Colour Of Love” which is an infectious earworm with strong similarities to The Cure, gorgeous sweeping synths dominate the atmospheric “Confessions Of A Dopamine Addict” and part of the fun of this album is discerning how much of this is actual guitars playing synth effects, the band has three guitarists now that James Iha is back in the band.
One of the highlights of CYR are the backing vocals provided by Katie Cole and Sierra Swan, they’re presence adding an extra addictive quality to the radio-friendly title track. Not everyone is going to see this but I get slight Fleetwood Mac vibes off of the album’s second single “Ramona” which is an incredibly catchy track and a real highlight from this album.
If you’re a parent “Birch Grove” will bring a tear to your eyes, a song Billy Corgan wrote about his children, it’s one of the deepest songs he’s recorded and that is saying something. “Wyttch” is an almost opeth like metal track that is the biggest musical departure from the tone of this album, “Telegenix” just stands on its own as one of the album’s absolute best tracks. “The Hidden Sun” reminds me a lot of the band Shiny Toy Guns and would fit well with their last album. “Purple Blood” and “Schaudenfreud” have slight similarities to the band The Birthday Massacre.
As someone who has been a major fan of this band for 27 years, Cyr is a monumental musical achievement and among The Smashing Pumpkins very best work, it’s riches not immediately evident on first listen, But if you take the time to really listen and dig deep you’ll find an absolute diamond of an album.
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