Album Of The Week

The Smashing Pumpkins: "Adore" (Virgin)

Since the sacking of Jimmy Chamberlin, fans have wondered how the new Smashing Pumpkins album will sound without their drummer's unique swathe of percussion. The answer comes in the electronic bursts of cut-up drumbeats which pepper this new album, and which give Adore its strange, detached magnetism. Working as a three-piece and to a softer, more acoustic brief, Billy Corgan, D'Arcy Wretzky and James Iha have come up with a surprisingly fluid mixture of artificial-sounding beats, 1980s-sounding keyboards, and warm, welcoming melodies. Opening with the overture-like To Sheila, and diving straight into the single, Ava Adore, the album immediately establishes its intent, which is to beat you into submission with a feather. Perfect sounds like a more watercolour version of the band's biggest hit, 1979, and Daphne Descends draws you into a melodic maelstrom. Once Upon A Time revels in its childlike sparkle, but Tear shines with opalescent fire. Piano plays a key role in many of the new songs, cascading along the melody to Crest-fallen and balancing the metallic hues with a melancholy tint. Corgan's muse takes a couple of tangents after Appels & Oranjes, going down some dead-ends on Pug, Annie-Dog and the Tale Of Dusty And Pistol Pete, but the band gets back on course with the gentle thrum of Shame, setting the scene for the penultimate, pent-up emotion of To Martha, a song about the death of Corgan's mother. Although the production does its best to distance itself from any emotional attachment, the songs have enough heart to feel very personal indeed.