The Smashing Pumpkins

May 30 - June 6, 1 9 9 6

*1/2 The Smashing Pumpkins

ONE

(Virgin single)

This looks like a great value until you play it: a Smashing Pumpkins CD single containing an entire album's worth of unreleased material (37 minutes) in addition to the A-side, which is perhaps the most predictable album-track follow-up to "Bullet with Butterfly Wings." The main attraction here is "The Pastichio Medley," a 23-minute track spliced together from the various sessions that led up to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (the credits list a whopping 70 segments). Unfortunately there are more splices in it than there is music. You just get to hear the band jamming on various instrumental riffs for a few seconds each before the tape cuts to something else. The one sustained riff, which lasts for three minutes toward the end, is a two-note grind that aims to annoy -- and succeeds.

The five shorter, unreleased tracks (including another instrumental) are playable but nothing special, representing the arena-rock side of the band that was toned down on the album. Along with the "Bullet" B-sides, this EP proves that Smashing Pumpkins chose their best for the album; "Pastichio" is recommended only to those who thought that Metal Machine Music was Lou Reed's best album.

-- Brett Milano