The Smashing Pumpkins Reveal New Album, ‘Aghori Mhori Mei’

The Pumpkins’ 13th album follows last year’s Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts.

Image by Jason Renaud

The Smashing Pumpkins return next month with their 13th album, Aghori Mhori Mei. Following on from last year’s 33-track epic, Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts, the Pumpkins’ latest spans just ten tracks and is set to arrive in two weeks on Friday, August 2 via Martha’s Music/Thirty Tigers.

Pumpkins founder Billy Corgan released a statement explaining the band tried to replicate the recording process of their earlier albums when they entered the studio to write Aghori Mhori Mei.

“In the writing of this new album I became intrigued with the well-worn axiom, ‘you can’t go home again.’ Which I have found personally to be true in form but thought well, what if we tried anyway? Not so much in looking backwards with sentimentality but rather as a means to move forward; to see if in the balance of success and failure that our ways of making music circa 1990-1996 would still inspire something revelatory.”

READ MORE: Japandroids Announce Final Album, Share New Single ‘Chicago’

Corgan also took to X to share a lengthy statement about the album, revealing Aghori Mhori Mei will be released digitally with no singles.

“We played this game of rock and roll for 36 years,” the post begins. “And… had to give the knee many times to what is the first song and what is the first statement and let other people judge us by one moment in time. We felt the right way to hear this record was an intact body of work.

“10 songs, about 45 minutes, and then let the fans decide whether we put ourselves back in that original position, whether we were able to go home again with this record.

“So on August 2nd, 2024, it’ll be there for everyone to listen to. We’re just gonna put it out digitally. Of course, we’re gonna put it for sale and that comes later, but we want to just put the record out.

“And we’re proud of what we’ve done, but we want people to hear the record as one body of work and they can decide that value of what we have done.”

Aghori Mhori Mei is the Pumpkins’ first album since the departure of longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder, who has been replaced on tour by Kiki Wong. The band is currently on tour with Green Day playing shows across North America and will be heading to South America for a run of dates in November.

Aghori Mhori Mei is set for release on August 2 via Martha’s Music/Thirty Tigers. You can pre-order/pre-save your copy here and check out the album artwork and tracklist below.

Aghori Mhori Mei

1. Edin

2. Pentagrams

3. Sighommi

4. Pentecost

5. War Dreams of Itself

6. Who Goes There

7. 999

8. Goeth the Fall

9. Sicarus

10. Murnau

---