A blend of soft love and punk rock

ALBUM OF THE MONTH

Billy’s surprising return to form
Smashing Pumpkins — Monuments to an Elegy (BMG)

Billy Corgan is back with a bang. Inviting Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee along for the ride, The Smashing Pumpkins’ architect returns to heavier climes, delivering a typically impressive ninth album. The collection is full of heavy guitar riffs masking graceful pop compositions, with a reserved use of synths softening the overall sound. At nine songs over an easily digestible 32 minutes, it’s the shortest Pumpkins album yet. Monuments opens with the slow-burning Tiberius, which incorporates both heavy guitar riffs as well as a moderately interesting rhythm. The sound remains big and husky as on the rocking One and All, but it’s more direct and less cluttered here, especially noticeable on the flowing ballad Being Beige.

The album is certainly the easiest Pumpkins record to listen to since their original reformation in 2008. It acts as something of a midpoint in sound between Siamese Dream and 2003’s Zwan album, Mary Star of the Sea. The raging Anti-Hero has chunky 1970s power-pop while Dorian has New Order’s midnight melancholy. One and All is the crowning jewel of the album as Billy and guitarist Jeff Schroeder bounce off one another during its melody-stacked chorus. Elsewhere Corgan’s interest in vintage synth sounds is very much in evidence. Most tracks have a shade of electro-sound, often working hand-in-hand with the guitars. It’s certainly the best Pumpkins album since Corgan started making work under that name again: melodic, love struck, tuneful and confident.
Best track: One and All   
Worst track: Run2Me

Poppy and conceptual, simultaneously
Panda Bear — Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper (Domino)

Panda Bear might have been a vital part of the notorious psychedelic band Animal Collective, but over the years he’s equally established himself as a solo artist. The fifth album is both a return to the Panda Bear sound of old and a departure into uncharted sonic territories. Across the album’s 13 tracks, Lennox combines the psychedelic sounds of his past efforts with stark song craft and marshy electronic backdrops that reach back to Animal Collective’s masterwork, Merriweather Post Pavilion. Crosswords uses a backing of abstract sounds like springs, door stops and buzzers but ties them all together with Panda Bear’s trademark pop sensibilities. The harp sample on Tropic of Cancer lingers like a childhood dream while Lennox uses his Beach Boys harmonies to explore his father’s death.

“It’s all in the family,” he begins, further looping “And you won’t come back/ You can’t come back”. Lead single Mr Noah has a strut and flounce previously absent from Lennox’s compositions while other standout track Boys Latin has a glorious bass line peppered by startlingly effective vocal harmonies. Musically the collection stands out from Panda Bear’s previous four releases, not necessarily in its darkness, but rather in the hard edge that can be found throughout. Lennox’s signature style sounds perfect here — a dreamy soundscape that sounds warm and comfortable one minute, before switching to uncanny and pompous the next minute.
Best track: Crosswords
Worst track: Selfish Gene
Rating: ***

Finely honed record in Stott’s discography
Andy Stott — Faith in Strangers  (Modern Love)

Manchester electronic artist Andy Stott has moved farther from his comfort zone in this fourth full-length, continuing to push his intelligent, rhythmically abrasive sound towards a dreamier, more melodic place. Faith in Strangers marks a breathtaking follow-up to 2012’s highly regarded Luxury Problems. The mixture of gorgeous vocals, synthesisers, thundering bass, and distortion appears throughout the album. Opener Time Away, featuring Euphonium in the backdrop, sets an ambient mood with its beat-free soundscape stretching out towards the horizon before the assault of Violence begins. Teaming up again with vocalist and former piano instructor Alison Skidmore, Stott has opted for largely analog effects this time around, casting his ideas through a new vision.

Elsewhere, the vocals are more contained, less assertive than they were on Luxury Problems, though they are undoubtedly essential. The rhythmic influence on tracks like Science and Industry and On Oath is inexorably dominated by the combinations of synths and Skidmore’s Beth Gibbons-like vocals. Faith in Strangers is another leap forward for Stott, refining his sense of song craft and expanding his instrumental palette without smoothing down his trademark coarse edges in the slightest.
Best track: Time Away
Worst track: Missing
Rating: ***