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LISTEN: Smashing Pumpkins Release New Song!

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Smashing Pumpkins just dropped the fifth song, “Freak,” from their planned 44-track album Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, and it’s a union of Billy Corgan’s greatest traits: emotional pop-rock songwriting and heavy guitar heroics. Listen below!

The song is like a retrospective of Corgan’s career: the catchy chorus of bright guitars and cheerful na na na na nas recall his short-lived pop-rock side-project Zwan; the heavy, distorted bass lines revisitthe goth-rock moments of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (see “Bodies,” “Jellybelly”); and his lyrics are all early-Pumpkins, when Corgan was the romantic mouthpiece for disenfranchised youths.

The Smashing Pumpkins recently debuted their latest lineup (featuring new recruit Nicole Fiorentino on bass) with a sold out show at the 200-capacity Viper Club in Los Angeles, and will tour the U.S. through July. At the L.A. show, SPIN’s Kevin Bronson wrote that Corgan’s “leaner, meaner Smashing Pumpkins” delivered an “exhilarating performance.” Read the complete review here.

In late July, Smashing Pumpkins will join the Flaming Lips, the National, Spiritualized, and the Black Keys to help SPIN celebrate its 25th anniversary with a series of special concerts in New York City. Get more details here.

What do you think about “Freak”? Tell us in the comment section below!