The Smashing Pumpkins recorded an album's worth of material in 1992 in between the 'Gish' and 'Siamese Dream' sessions, including fan favorites such as 'Drown', released on the 'Singles' soundtrack, and 'Starla' from 'Pisces Iscariot'. If you like your Pumpkins loud with lots of fuzz guitar, feedback, screaming vocals and heavy drums, this is for you. But let's not rush into it. We open up with one of the two acoustic numbers, 'Soothe', which sets the stage for one of their heaviest songs ever, 'Hello Kitty Kat'. (I just noticed that 'Pisces Iscariot' opens up with 'Soothe' also, so I guess it makes sense somehow). 'Plume' sounds like something that could have been on 'Siamese Dream', and we close with the eight-minute sonic journey of 'Drown' with that cool delay and feedback solo at the end. Side two opens with another album-friendly outtake 'Moleasskiss', followed by the loud 'STP' and the acoustic 'Blissed', with plenty of slide guitar. We close with the eleven minute 'Starla' in all its epic glory, giving us nine songs coming in at 40 minutes for another album of erratic extremes and no hit singles. Those would come on their next album. I named it after one of the songs, which they never really seem to do, but there's no way I can think of a title. I mean, where do these guys come up with their album titles? The photo is from the cassette album cover for Pisces Iscariot. I don't know what it means.
Track listing
01 Soothe
02 Hello Kitty Kat
03 Plume
04 Drown
05 Moleasskiss
06 STP
07 Blissed
08 U.S.S.R.
09 Starla
From The Album Fixer site June 2015. All notes and opinions are his.
