The Smashing Pumpkins: Oceania

The Smashing Pumpkins
Oceania
Martha's Music / EMI
***

Reactivated in 2007 after spending much of the previous decade in limbo, Chicago's Smashing Pumpkins first found fame during the grunge era, selling more than 30 million albums.

In the process, their singer and sole remaining founder member Billy Corgan also earned a reputation as a self-important diva with a fondness for bloated, bombastic, sprawling pomp-rock epics. Backed by his latest, all-new trio of hired hands, Corgan bills Oceania as part of a marathon 44-track song cycle with the achingly pretentious title Teargarden by Kaleidyscope.

The opening numbers Quasar and Panopticon are both mini-rock operas full of crashing melodrama, florid poetry and symphonic mood swings. In fairness, Oceania proves to be relatively compact and restrained compared to the band's previous albums. Corgan also shows his tender, romantic side on semi-acoustic numbers such as the lovely My Love is Winter.

Although there is nothing groundbreaking here, this is a solid return to the classic Pumpkins formula of strong melodies, sumptuous arrangements and soaring emotions.