Top Pick
The Smashing Pumpkins – Aghori Mhori Mei (progressive/actually rockin' alt rock)
The Smashing Pumpkins are a hard band to love, or even show a mild amount of affection for, in 2024. There’s no denying that they’re one of the most important bands in alternative music history, who remain pervasively influential to this day (as the new Bring Me the Horizon album more than proves). At the same time though, there’s main-man Billy Corgan’s descent into unbearable self-indulgence/aggrandisement and right-wing conspiracy nonsense to contend with, along with a seemingly systematic attempt on the band’s part to do as much damage to their reputation as possible with each passing release.
The Smashing Pumpkins’ post-reformation material has been shaky at best, but between the utterly unremarkable single-disc offering Shiny and Oh So Bright (2018), the completely uninspired double-album Cyr (2020) and the entirely unnecessary three-record album suite Atum (2023), which contained a grand total of one decent song between them, they’ve found themselves bordering on having released more bad (read: absolutely terrible) music over the last half-decade or so, than they released good music throughout their entire, decade-long first run. …which is why I‘m beyond shocked—flabbergasted, in fact—to report that Aghori Mhori Mei doesn’t suck, even if Billy Corgan definitely does. Suck, that is—albeit in a rather cartoonish, completely-out-of-touch way that I—as a straight, cis, white man sitting pretty on the other side of the world—don’t find particularly threatening, such is my privilege. (Also, this.)
Not only does Aghori Mhori Mei not suck, it might actually be pretty good, actually. The Pumpkins promised a more guitar-oriented affair during the albums extremely brief run-up, and, on that front at least, they’ve certainly delivered. Opener “Edin” begins with some swirling, fuzz-laden guitar feedback, before dropping into a shockingly energetic and undeniably hard-hitting rock riff which sets the tone (and engenders genuine excitement) for what’s to come, with many of the following tracks, including standouts “War Dreams of No One”, “999” and “Sicarus” following suite. While it’s tempting to attribute this revitalised riffitude to new (touring) guitarist Kiki Wong, it turns out she didn’t actually play on the record, which has apparently also been in the works since 2022. There’s also plenty of downtime to be had along the way, but it always remains interesting and urgent, and when the extra production elements the band toyed with over their last slew of releases, such as the electronic backing to “Who Goes There” or the layered symphonics on “Sicarus”, are deployed, they are made all the more impactful for being used sparingly.* Add in the fact that much of the records riffing recalls early Tool or, perhaps more fittingly, guitarist James Iha’s early work with A Perfect Circle, and the whole affair suggests that the Pumpkins always had it in them, they’ve just been actively choosing not to make albums this engaging or enjoyable, for whatever reason.
Aghori Mhori Mei is easily the best Smashing pumpkins album since Monuments to an Elegy (2014)—an otherwise maligned album I have a rather large soft spot for—or maybe even Machina (2000), which remains my favourite of theirs. I won’t go further than that, but I imagine many others will. In fact, Machina might be the classic Smashing Pumpkins album Aghori Mhori Mei most resembles overall. While both records are initially characterised by their heavier, riff-forward presentation, both are also punctuated by softer, more-contemplative sections, which Aghori Mhori Mei really leans into, making it perhaps more of a mix between Machina and its subdued predecessor Adore (1998). Indeed, Aghori Mhori Mei wouldn’t have sounded that out of place if it had been dropped immediately after Mellon Colle and the Infinite Sadness (1995), making it a worthy successor to one of the greatest runs of records in rock’n’roll history and by far the biggest and most-welcome surprise of 2024 so far.
Go see them playing with Green Day on the we don’t suck that much anymore tour, I guess?
*Something else Bring Me the Horizon would also do well to take note of, methinks.
Release Roundup
The Acid Machine – Godzilla (synthy stoner metal)
Acid Mass – Worship (crossover black-thrash)
Anberlin – Vega (post-hardcore, emo)
Asenblut – Entfesselt (Amon Amarth)
Autolysis – Inevitable Infection (brutal death, goregrind)
Barbarian Hermit – Mean Sugar (stoner sludge)
Baryon – Hypnos (post-rock/metal)
Black Smoke Trigger – Horizons (gothy rock/metal)
Blacklist – With Murderous Intent (blackened death-doom)
Blemish – Eterna oscuridad (blackened doom thrash?)
Blind Guardian – Somewhere Far Beyond Revisited (y tho?)
Blues Pills – Birthday (blues rock)
Brainsore – The Grip Of The Naked Mind (death metal)
Caged Bastard – Solace in Virtue’s Absence (weird noisy black metal)
Calderum – Desecration of the Bastille (noisy black metal)
Carnophage – Matter Of A Darker Nature (brutal tech-death)
David Lynch and Chrystabell – Cellophane Memories (weird ambient, experimental vocal)
Devouring Void – Across the Eternal Nothingness (black metal)
Dezaztre Natural – Violencia perpetua (crosoverish death-thrash)
Doldrey – Only Death Is Eternal (crusty death metal)
Eldermoon – Egregora (modern metal, meodeath)
Fade Dreams – Fading Dreams of Youth (posty dsbm)
Footballhead – Before I Die (alt rock)
Forgotten Winter – Lucifugo (symphonic blackened-doom)
Fourth Dominion – Diana’s Day (doom rock/metal)
Gaijin – Children of Dust (instrumental prog/tech-death)
Gravemind – Introsphere (techish-metalcore, deathcore)
Har – Cursed Creation (blackened death metal)
Hellwalker – Transfiguration (death metal)
Hive of the Mantids – Fervour (slamming brutal death/core)
Imodium Party Animal – Party Time! (industrialised synthwave)
Ink & Fire – Emblazoned Visions Yield Eternity (noisy/hyper black metal)
Kayas – By the Moon and the Stars (thrashy meloblack)
Keel – Keelworld (melodic rock, AOR)
King Zog – Second Dawn (sludge doom)
Kodama – Telos (groove death, melodeath)
Lachlann – Divers Doom (stoner doom)
Lost To Light – Conceal (metalcore)
The Mantle – Violent Cosmic Fortune (progressive/technical death metal)
Manic Abraxas – Skinformation (crusty black-thrash)
Mister Misery – Mister Misery (bad metal, goth glam)
Moiii – Moiii (weird/progresisve industrial)
Mourner’s Lament – A Grey Farewell (depressive doom)
A Night In Texas – Digital Apocalypse (deathcore)
Nihilect – Tapestry (proggish death metal)
Parasitic Entity – Artificial Hell Construct (tech death)
Pathogenic Virulence – Scourged (slamming brutal death)
Poison Ruin – Confrere (punkish trad-metal)
RedFace – First Blood (death metal)
Repulsive – Sacredly Contaminated (brutal death metal)
Sepulchre By The Sea – Seven Chambers (post-black metal/gaze)
Shadow Knell – Shadow Knell (dungeon synth)
Solemn Ceremony – Chapter III (doom metal)
Sonagi – Everything Is Longing (post hardcore, screamo)
Strident – Budapest Never Sleeps (death thrash)
Sulfuris – Corpus//Animus (metalcore, melodeath)
Svartelder – Trenches (progressive black metal)
Symbiotic Tomorrow – The Final Call (prog metal)
Tarfania – Stille Nacht (black metal)
Triste Mode – Scream of Agony (gothic funeral doom)
True Black Dawn – Of Thick-Circling Shadows (black metal)