Lord of Overstock
The War Against Silence #62, 4 April 96
Quite an unusual number of domestic releases on the pile this time, actually. Smashing Pumpkins' entry is a four-track EP that promotes the bewitching "1979" with three worthy non-album tracks. "Ugly", the first, is a meditative bit of self-loathing on which Corgan's whine sears through a pulsing bass line and percussion that for most of the song consists of nothing but a menacing clicking that sounds like it's being produced by a nervous robot praying mantis. "Believe", a James Iha composition, opens with a gentle acoustic-guitar arpeggio, and builds with an elegantly sighing cello into a soaring, exuberant song that sounds to me, oddly, like a musical welcome to spring. "Cherry", the final track, returns to Corgan's oeuvre for a plaintive and lonely mini-epic complete with shimmering keyboards, splashing cymbals, and some eerie guitar creaking.
Any non-album tracks may seem baldly excessive after everything that the band didn't leave off of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, but if your tolerance isn't totally used up these are three more good ones, and they make a nicely coherent and compact set, for when you want to have something like the album experience again, but only have fifteen minutes before The Simpsons starts.