SMASHING PUMPKINS - Siamese Dream
Select Magazine from August 1993.
Review by ANDREW PERRY
(Sent to us by Tim Robinson)
There was a school of thought that said Chicago's volatile grungesters Smashing Pumpkins had shot their wad. It's been two years since 'Gish' came out, rather quietly, and still the Pumpkins' threatened leap to stardom hadn't materialized. In '92, it often seemed like this inspirational, insatiably reaching band were touring full-on to break an old LP that was badly over-stretching its shelf-life.
Not their style, and the strain showed. Road traumas. Near termination after a nightmare set at Reading. A messed-up drummer. People sick of the sight of each other. Billy Corgan's failure complex and general neuroses coming home to roost... The prospect of the Pumpkins blowing it big-time was a real one. At least Nirvana got platinum discs prior to auto-destruction.
Now that we have this album - one that nearly didn't happen - safely in front of us, doubts aren't really part of the equation. Here are Smashing Pumpkins doing every gorgeous glittering gonad-squelching thing that they do, only more so, even bigger and better, and there's tons of the stuff. The scope and scale is immense. 'Cherub Rock' kicks off in obvious 45 fashion, its guitars vrooming out of your speakers like a squadron of very large aeroplanes, and you'll soon get your rocks off to 'Today' - the sort of candy-coloured pop hit to help wipe away memories of being into GN'R.
The title 'Siamese Dream' is perfect Pumpkins - idyllic and schizo at the same time. Their appeal lies in hitting you at gut-level with vague sensations of joy, or confused expressions of angst and anger. Due to Corgan's state of mind during the LP's genesis, there's more from the former gray area than the latter.
Often masked by his mannered Bolan-style singing, you sometimes wonder what he's on about, or if he even has anything to impart beyond his doomed reflections on romance. He's not just fashionably in touch with his feminine side, but still going through life with the wide-eyed awe, horror and incomprehension of a kid half his age.
'Disarm' opens with a bare acoustic guitar, and you expect some kind of slacker protest anthem, but as strings swirl around and a death knoll chimes in, you're privy to Billy's shattered thoughts at the moment of his lover's departure. You sense that the whole record is a process of coping with that loss. There's 'Soma''s blissfully sedated escape into sleep, the fuzzed-out anguish of 'Mayonaise', and a mammoth show-piece which goes through spasms of monster heaviosity, lovely hazy calm and starflight noise, called 'Silverfuck'.
All Corgan's pains are expelled in the most grand-scale, expansively-passionate blasts of music you'll hear this year. As with P.J.Harvey's 'Rid of Me', you may feel voyeuristic as you rummage through the vocals for the truths they hold, but it's hard to get maudlin or dispirited when the Total Rock that swamps them is so uplifting. Even if 'Luna' closes with a statement of love ( how about "I'm in love with you" for directness? ) that's hushed and pitifully wounded, the pleasure's all ours... It'll be hard for anyone to top this one. The ball's in your court, Mr Cobain.
[Rating: 5 out of 5]