SMASHING PUMPKINS have released two new songs, “Cyr” and “The Colour of Love”. The tracks are expected to appear on the band’s upcoming follow-up to 2018’s “Shiny And Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun.”, due later in the year via Sumerian. “Shiny And Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun.” was SMASHING PUMPKINS‘ first in over 18 years to feature founding members Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlin and James Iha, along with longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder.
“‘Cyr’ is dystopic folly,” Corgan said in a statement, “one soul against the world sort of stuff, set against a backdrop of shifting loyalties and sped up time. To me it stands as both hopeful and dismissive of what is and isn’t possible with faith.”
Regarding the quarantine performance video for “Cyr”, director Linda Strawberry said: “This is a goth fever dream of pent up emotion — an artistic visual release attempting to create a momentary escape from the emotional black cloud hanging over all of us this year. A dark seduction filmed in quarantine at a social distance.”
Earlier this year, Corgan told Tennessean about SMASHING PUMPKINS‘ upcoming studio album: “When we got back together with James, we went in with Rick Rubin and did eight songs. It was put out as a formal album, but I said at the time — and I did mean it — in my eyes, it wasn’t an album. We didn’t approach it like we’ve approached every other album we’d ever done, which is more like making a movie.
“In many ways, this is the first real album [since the reunion] where we’ve hunkered down and made a classic, ‘Let’s throw it all at the wall and see what happens’ type of PUMPKINS record. I’ve been working on it for over a year.
“This is the first album since the album that came out in 2000, ‘Machina’, where me, James and Jimmy worked on something for a very long time,” he added. “It’s got a greater conceptual base, and it’s probably a wider swath of music. The last one was kind of like, ‘Let’s just jump in, record some stuff real fast, and let it be what it is,’ … so I’m excited about this, because we’re kind of back in the lane of taking a risk, and trying to bring something new to the table, as opposed to just aping what we’re known for.”
PUMPKINS‘ 2018 “Shiny And Oh So Bright Tour” reportedly sold over 300,000 tickets across North America and saw them playing sold-out arena shows at venues, including The Forum, United Center and Madison Square Garden. The tour was the band’s first in nearly two decades to feature Corgan, Chamberlin and Iha, alongside Schroeder, bassist Jack Bates and keyboardist Katie Cole.
