In a recent interview for Yamaha’s On the Bench | Artist Check-in series, Smashing Pumpkins electric guitar player Jeff Schroeder revealed that the band was working on a double album due this year (as well as another new record on top of that).
“We have actually 20 news songs coming out this year that we just finished kind of right before this all started,” he said.
Now, we’re beginning to hear the fruits of those labors, with the release of two brand new Pumpkins songs, Cyr and The Colour of Love.
The new tracks, which the band confirms will be featured on an upcoming studio album, see three-fourths of the original Pumpkins lineup – Corgan, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain – returning, with Schroeder rounding out the line-up for a three guitar attack (even if, admittedly, the two tunes are rather keyboard-heavy).
Regarding Cyr, which comes with a performance video directed by Linda Strawberry, Corgan said:
“Cyr is dystopic folly, 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.”
“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,” added Strawberry. “A dark seduction filmed in quarantine at a social distance.”
You can check out the Cyr video, and also listen to The Colour of Love, above.
