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Tags: sp, smashing pumpkins, the smashing pumpkins, billy corgan, wpc, william patrick corgan, the future embrace, 90s, alternative, alternative, adore, gish, mellon. Billy Corgan 앨범: The Future Embrace I’m ready oh Lord I’m ready I’m ready, ready, ready to roll ready to leave I’m ready oh Lord I’m steady now.

TheFutureEmbrace review

The Future Embrace is the first solo album ever released by Billy Corgan – the revered singer/songwriter/guitarist whose groundbreaking work with The Smashing Pumpkins defined modern rock as shockingly affirmative, even romantic. Corgan's most intimate set of songs yet, the hauntingly beautiful The Future Embrace brings together his astonishing past and promising present. Now, a decade after his star shone as bright as it probably ever will, Billy Corgan has stepped out on his own with an album influenced by the '60s, '70s, and especially the '80s, but which contains none of the soft-loud-soft-loud '90s rock he played such a major role in popularizing. With production help from Bjorn Thorsrud and Nitzer Ebb's Bon Harris – both of whom worked on the The Smashing Pumpkins' most synthetic release, Adore – The Future Embrace is an electronically charged album full of manufactured beats and dominating keys.

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The album opens with All Things Change, propelled by a simple canned drumbeat and a wash of restrained '80s guitar, which sets the tone for the next 41 minutes. Corgan sings softly but pointedly, commanding the listener’s attention without being overbearing. Many musicians seem to have a difficult time copping to their actual influences, but Corgan is willing to give shout-outs to everyone from David Bowie to Joy Division to The Sisters Of Mercy to Echo & The Bunnymen. This is all stuff the 38-year-old Corgan grew up with, so he knows what he's doing, and he's done an excellent job of avoiding the derivative trap so many current retro acts are stuck in. The Camera Eye uses a Radiohead-referencing guitar line to lead its verses into one of the album’s best choruses. To Love Somebody, a failed Bee Gees cover thanks to its exhausting chorus, is the first hiccup, but Corgan rebounds nicely with A100. And even though the New Order-esque Mina Loy (M.O.H.) and the dramatic, Psychedelic Furs-flavored DIA aren't going to knock Mariah Carey or Gwen Stefani off the top of the charts, he's still worth the price of admission.

His lyrics still deal primarily with the thrills of falling in love, but read far more poetically. And the music is vastly improved, too. To his extreme credit, Corgan isn't trying to obscure his pain and uncertainty behind layers of guitar distortion and sonic dissonance the way he did with The Smashing Pumpkins, instead he's employed a rather restrained hand as he tries to work his way out of this psychic maze of his own making, cavorting with the ghosts of his past, present and future. The electronic sound of The Future Embrace practically demands that people compare it to Adore, but the actual production of the songs bears more resemblance to MACHINA, as Corgan performs many of the same aural tricks found on The Smashing Pumpkins’ last commercial gasp. As an artist, Corgan is still finding himself – an unexciting but truthful revelation. No longer interested in howling outward screams of pain and desperation, he continues to carve himself a brighter path toward artistic fulfillment; only the path is less definitive. The Future Embrace is a tremendous and noble effort from a major talent.

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It’s been five years since Smashing Pumpkins split up, leaving a glittering, if flawed, legacy behind then. When they first appeared with Gish in 1991, they were embraced by the cooler-than-thou types who were horrified to discover that Nirvana had become hugely popular.

Despite the fact that only Gish and Siamese Dream were true classics (although if Melon Collie & The Infinite Sadness had been a single album, that would have joined them), Billy Corgan’s band built a stellar reputation for writing atmospheric, intense songs with a killer hook.

Corgan’s post-Pumpkins band, Zwan, only managed one album but that was enough to confirm he’d not lost it. He’d cheered up, so it seemed, and produced an album full of melodic yet heavy rockers. He may not have been able to shake his self-indulgent side, but Zwan were no worse for that.

But Corgan has always had a reputation for being ‘difficult’ to work with, and Zwan were soon dissolved. So we come to Corgan’s first solo album, and at first listen it’s very reminiscent of Smashing Pumpkins’ Adore album. There’s a preponderance of synth sounds on the album, a surprising lack of guitars, and a rather doomy atmosphere all round.

It’s clear that Corgan has deliberately gone for atmosphere over songs on TheFutureEmbrace. It takes a few listens for the album to sink in, and due to the similarity of the songs, at first hearing it’s likely to wash over you somewhat, with only the optimistic opener All Things Change and the brutal keyboard riff of A100 really sticking in the mind.

Yet after a while, it all begins to make a beautiful, if skewed, kind of sense. Gradually, various songs creep up on you: the nagging bassline of The Camera Eye, which builds beautifully to a rousing chorus; the gorgeous soundscapes of Now (And Then), where the synths become almost overpowering, and the soaring single Walking Shade, which shows The Bravery how to really do this electro-pop business.

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One reference point that keeps coming up is The Cure – indeed, some of these songs could almost be outtakes from Disintegration or Pornography. As it to prove the point, Robert Smith himself crops up on a dark and twisted cover of The Bee Gees To Love Somebody, where Corgan and Smith combine to make it sound like the saddest song on earth.

Sometimes, it does all get a bit much. Sorrows (In Shade) is a bit too doomy, and Corgan’s voice, which has always tended towards the whiney, becomes a bit difficult to listen to. while DIA, although featuring the welcome addition of a guitar, has forgotten its tune somewhere along the way. All is redeemed for the closing track Strayz, which ends the album on a beautifully tender note.

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If you like Billy Corgan for his knack of writing a radio-friendly song with a heavy dose of angst, then you may not enjoy TheFutureEmbrace. Yet give the man credit for moving on and signalling a clear break with his past. He remains one of the most interesting and talented figures on the scene and this is a fine, if challenging, listen.