Review of The Smashing Pumpkins Aghori Mhori Mei. Is this the album we have all been longing for since 1995 when The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was released?
There have been arguably a dozen albums since the 1995 release Mellon Collie and infinite sadness. Why should this album matter?
Homecoming
This album is a homecoming to that style of rock that Smashing Pumpkins produced in the 1990s, and its intentional. But critics will say, “I don’t hear a single like: Today, 1979 or Bullets with Butterfly Wings.”
And they may be right or wrong. But frankly, I don’t give a damn!
“In the writing of this new album I became intrigued with the well-worn axiom, ‘you can’t go home again’, Which I have found personally to be true in form but thought well, what if we tried anyway? Not so much in looking backwards with sentimentality, but rather as a means to move forward; to see if in the balance of success and failure that our ways of making music circa 1990-1996 would still inspire something revelatory.”
It’s personal.
This album is so emotional for me. The cryptic lyrics and song titles allow the listener to interpret the meaning out of the songs as they wish. Much like the lyrics written by Bob Dylan on Blonde on Blonde, art is in the eye of the beholder.
We get raw emotions, great guitar and driving percussion in this album. The emotions are delivered in such a way that can be captured by the listener for their own personal use. For me personally, it brings me back to the end of the 1990s when I was so optimistic about the future. So much pain, regret and disappointment has come since then.
It’s a Smashing Pumpkins record.
For a certain portion of fans, this album can do no wrong. It doesn’t eclipse Gish, Siamese dream, or Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness but so what! What would a Nirvana fan give to get a follow-up album to In Utero from Kurt Cobain and the guys?
Obviously Kurt is with us no more, but Smashing Pumpkins fans should feel like it’s Christmas right now. And it is!
You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way. Bob Dylan, the song Mississippi.
Review of Smashing Pumpkins Aghori Mhori Mei–Not a Pop Record.
The album starts with a jam. It begins with “Edin,” a song lasting 6:45 long and the next song “Pentagrams,” is also over 6 minutes long. One criticism I have heard about the album is that the songs blend into each other, making difficult to recognize one song from the next. I think this is a sophomore mistake. The album is moody and all the songs fit this mood. To me, it’s a strength because it’s one vibe. It’s not a collection of singles packaged together. Album rock is rare.
Review of The Smashing Pumpkins Aghori Mhori Mei.
My favorite tracks on the first dozen listens are Pentagrams, 999 and Sicarus. It’s just so refreshing to hear Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberland playing music that resembles the Smashing Pumpkins of the 1990s. But also it’s not mimicking the past. It’s something new, but with the semblance of the past. It may be a fucking Jedi mind trick, but Aghori Mhori Mei is the most impactful of the year for me.
Pentagrams
The song has no satanic references, sorry mom. The song has a hook on the lyrics of the Chorus Love never dies…
“Pentagrams”
Love never dies
A love
Love as ice
For always
Forever I
Love never dies
Love never dies
As true
Real and mine
For always
Forever I
Love never diesLabyrinth milk syringe
Who leaves the gates gold
Scorpion
Scorpio
Pay as you go
When we’re young and dead heroes
Pay as you goOn the down
Need a hit of iridium
On the town and tedium
Ghastly bland chameleons
Lost, I’m in
On the wheel
Bearing brunt and brutalist
No hint of sun or reverence
Stirring warmth and covenant
Lost, I’m inChilled as kisses breathe
The serpent and the choir
Whilst tombs and blooms ink dust
It’s faint this wish to freeze
Midst Diana and the hunt
Lie the dogs cathedral cutLazarus
Lazarai
Who makes the wind’s will
Piper pans prospero
Pay as you go
When we’re young and dead heroes
Pay and you go
When we’re young and dead heroes
Pay as you goLove never dies
A love
Love as ice
For always
Forever I
Love never diesLove never dies
As true
Real and mine
For always
Forever I
Love never diesFor always
Forever I
Love never dies
For always
Forever I
Love never dies
Need a blast, iridium
Blow this town for tedium
Leave the damned and delirium
For all you know
You know
Monkey minds and medium
For all you know
You know
Smelting smoke and chameleons
For all you know
You know true love
True love
True love
True love
Sicarus.
In flames
Why in flames darkened
In flames
Deaf from the decadence
I in the dance entranced unmask
Before you laugh your last I ask you wait
Midnight blue in the daylight
Sunshine orange near a fireside
By any means we fall
Kali let’s touch beyonds with us
At love, at last
Kali let’s touch beyonds with us
At love, at last
By remains
By remains ashened
By remains
Slave to the decadence
Our mother wept her kid in trance
Before you made my peace therein you wait
Midnight blue in the daylight
Sunshine orange near a fireside
By many means we fallKali let’s touch beyonds with us
At love, at last
Kali of dawn
Satnam shri ram
At love, at last
Love will slay thee
Love will slake thee
Kali take me home
Love will slay thee
Love will slake thee
Kali take me home
Black holes and hope raised my intentions alone
Who reaps for those who can’t but listen yet know
And know, and know
In flames
Why in flames darkened
In flames
Deaf from the decadence
In I the flames entranced
You wait in flames
In flames, in flames, in flames
Midnight blue in the daylight
Sunshine orange near a fireside
By any means we fall
My personal guess on the meaning of the title of the album: Aghori Mhori Mei.
My guess is that it stands for “Undo me”. This album is so nostalgic. I learned recently that the word nostalgic means the pain of the past. This album is like going home, but it’s not home anymore. Like Billy said, “We can only stand at the curb in the neighborhood.”
So far, this is my favorite album of 2024, as of 8/13/2024. Thank you, Billy, James, and Jimmy and everyone else who contributed to make this record.
