When he’s not busy running his Resistance Pro wrestling promotion, Billy Corgan has a little musical side project called The Smashing Pumpkins. Considering how influential the band has been on the rock scene since the early ’90s, I’m guessing you may have heard of them. And after reissuing their first two albums – 1991’s Gish and 1993’s Siamese Dream – as remastered expanded box sets last November, Corgan’s latest Pumpkins incarnation releases its first traditional album in five years with Oceania.

Recorded amidst the band’s Teargarden by Kaleidyscope experiment (an ongoing, open-ended series of singles released digitally as they were recorded), Oceania is a return to the overall album experience as an art form. Rather than pump out singles in advance of the album’s physical release, the band instead streamed the album in its entirety (devoid of individual track separations) over the course of the past week. That means many fans are already familiar with the entire album before it hits store shelves today.

But Oceania is a return to the Pumpkin vine in other ways, as well. With the psychedelic guitar buildup that begins opening track “Quasar,” longtime Pumpkins fans might think they are listening to a Gish outtake or “I Am One” B-side. And that trend continues as songs like “Panoptica,” “The Celestials” and “My Love is Winter” feature Corgan’s blissful lyrics alongside his Brian May-like guitar wailing and overall blend of ’70s progressive rock, shoe gaze-y haze and occasional goth rock leanings. But Corgan also revisits the electronica elements he started toying with on 1998’s Adore and 2000’s Machina/The Machines of God, most notably on “One Diamond, One Heart,” the Kraftwerkian “Pinwheels” and “Wildflower.”

Corgan indulges his New Age-y rock side a few times, too, especially on the somewhat meditative title track.  Then “The Chimera” and “Inkless” return to the harder rocking “Cherub Rock”/”Mayonaise” alt-rock sound that established Corgan and the Pumpkins as rock royalty. And even though many Smashing Pumpkins fans will claim Oceania is not a true Pumpkins album (especially since longtime drummer Jimmy Chamberlin is no longer in the band, leaving Corgan as the sole original Pumpkin), Corgan has always been the creative force behind the band’s uniquely heavy sound. And with a newer lineup that seems to be just as accomplished in the studio as any previous members, Oceania proves that Corgan is not only still good at creating the yet-to-be-duplicated Pumpkins sound, but he also has a talent for finding equally accomplished musicians to help him realize his musical vision.

For more information, go to www.smashingpumpkins.com.