Smashing Pumpkins Announce New Album
This morning, Smashing Pumpkins announced their new album, Aghori Mhori Mei. In a social media post, they noted that they will not release a single in advance of the album.
In the message, Billy Corgan says, “We played this game of Rock and Roll for 36 years. And… had to give the knee many times to what is the first song and what is the first statement and let other people judge us by one moment in time. We felt the right way to hear this record was [as] an intact body of work.”
“10 songs, about 45 minutes, and then let the fans decide whether or not what we’ve done is what we set out to accomplish, whether we put ourselves back in that original position, whether we were able to go home again with this record.”
“So on August 2nd, 2024, it’ll be there for everyone to listen to. We’re just gonna put it out digitally. Of course, we’re gonna put it for sale and that comes later, but we want to just put the record out.”
“And we’re proud of what we’ve done, but we want people to hear the record as one body of work and they can decide the value of what we have done.”
In the video announcement (above), we see footage of Billy Corgan, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, who rejoined the band in 2015, and guitarist James Iha, who rejoined in 2018. This will be their first album since guitarist Jeff Schroeder, who joined in 2006, left the band last year.
The band’s most recent album was Atum: A Rock Opera In Three Acts; the first act was released in November of 2022, the second in January of 2023 and the final act in May of 2023. The band’s current live lineup includes bassist Jack Bates, keyboardist/guitarist Katie Cole and guitarist Kiki Wong (who has taken Schroeder’s slot). It’s unknown if those musicians contributed to the new album.
Smashing Pumpkins have been touring in Europe, but they return to the U.S. July 29, for a series of stadium dates opening for Green Day, as well as a number of headlining dates.
Aghori Mhori Mei is due out on digital platforms on August 2.
