American Gothic
Wea International
3/4/2008
The partially reunited Pumpkins’ second project, American Gothic, delivers classic Pumpkin sound but in a slightly different package. Breaking up in 2000, and with two members still estranged, it appeared for a while that the particular sound of Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain would be lost. Fortunately they “reunited” the band in 2006 and produced Zeitgeist in July of 2007. The fact that they’ve released this EP now (digitally in January) shows that the song-writing process for Corgan is getting easier again. The new EP doesn’t contain the hardness of Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist employs the classic overdubbed guitars from earlier projects, but American Gothic isn’t nearly so dense. The music has a lighter sweeter character. Of course that might just be because Corgan and Chamberlain couldn’t spend so much time in the studio because they’re still on tour. The songs stick to a comparably basic set of instrumentation, with only a few vocal effects. Lyrically, the songs, in the order on the international EP, seem to present the story of a man falling in love with a woman, eventually being disappointed, feeling as if he can’t live without her, and eventually deciding that he’ll get along after all. It’s difficult to say why the order was changed for the digital release on iTunes, but in that order the overall meaning is obscured. Fans should download this from iTunes, and then rearrange it into the proper order (The Rose March, Again Again Again, Pox, Sunkissed) before listening.
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