Smashing Pumpkins - Machina: The Machines of God
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Free Music Notes for Machina: The Machines of God
Free Music Review: a great end to the greatest rock band ever
Hit: 5 Stars
People don't like this album for one reason; after they heard Adore (the greatest album my ears have ever heard), they thought that because the Pumpkins were calling it quits after their last album, they would put out another Simese Dream of MCATIS. But, Billy Corgan is too much of a genious to decline back to their older material just cause Adore didn't sell well. For instanse, take Metallica, who puts out a "real fast and heavy cd because people think they lost their balls" or Korn, who puts out Untouchables and steers metal into a new direction but then goes back to their earlier sounds and includes a rapper on their new cd. Don't get me wrong, I love Korn's stuff, always will, but it is so disapointing to see a band decline musically because of sales.Anyway, back to the cd. The Everlasting Gaze blows your eardrums out when you first put in the cd, saying, "yeah, Adore didn't have any heavy guitars but we can still rock your a$$". It also has a very catchy chorus, and the end of the song just blows you away. Raindrops and Sunshowers is one of my favorite songs of all time, and my favorite an the album. It sounds very much like it could of went on Adore. Stand Inside Your Love is easily a radio hit, but yet I never heard it on radio. I of the Mourning is a 5/5 and so is the Sacred and Profane, which is my second favorite on the album.Try Try Try is a beautiful ballad, bringing back what Billy does best... Write depressing acoustic love songs. Next comes Heavy Metal Machine, my screename, but gets a 4/5, It is a awesome heavy song, but goes on for way too long. This Time and the Imploding voice are both 5/5. (Imploding Voice sounds similar to the Everlasting Gaze in my opinion, with its mind-blowing guitars and a synth-heavy chorus.) Glass and the Ghost Children is a weird song, over 9 minutes long. Starts out with melodic guitars with some distortion, then goes to weird talking in the middle, then to the eerie guitars at the end, with Billy singing "as she counted the spiders ans they crawled up inside her". Wound is my 3rd favorite, but the Crying Tree of Mercury only gets a 4/5 because it again goes on at the end. The last 3 songs all get a 5/5 and the Age of Innocense is a great end to a great cd that is a great finish to a great band.
Free Music Review: Everywhere you are - is everywhere you've been
Hit: 5 Stars
Machina / The Machines of God finds the Smashing Pumpkins returning to the familiar territory of beautiful, emotional rock n' roll. Although I personally love Adore and think it stands as a beautiful, artistic album, Machina returns to the Pumpkins old territory, and it is DAMN good. One of the best rock albums I've heard in a long time, in fact.The album rocks. The opening track, "The Everlasting Gaze", is a stunningly brutal and powerful Pumpkins track, and one of their most straight-ahead rock songs. The spoken word segue in the middle is excellent and unexpected. "Raindrops + Sunshowers" reminds me a little of Adore but more rock-oriented, very nice. "Stand Inside Your Love" is a brilliant, uplifting song. "I of the Mourning" is superb and catchy. "The Sacred and Profane" is beautiful and almost hypnotic. "Try, Try, Try" is slower and more peaceful.
"Heavy Metal Machine" is a firestorm of guitar thunder and fury, yet it remains very melodic and has some truly great lyrics. "This Time" is one of the album's highlights. "The Imploding Voice", from which the title of this review is taken, is one of my favorite songs on the album, and a bit different. "Glass and the Ghost Children" is truly haunting (kind of in the vein of the Pixies "Where is my Mind?"). "Wound" is a bit calmer, very good. "The Crying Tree of Mercury" is also haunting and reminds me of "Tear" from Adore. "With Every Light" is very catchy and a great song. "Blue Skies Bring Tears" is one of the album's oddest songs, being slower and more distorted. "The Age of Innocence" is very very good and has similarities to "1979."
A big improvement here is the amazing drumming of Jimmy Chamberlain, who is one of the best modern rock drummers alive. Also the album often reminded me of My Bloody Valentine (which, by the way, is one of Billy and the other Pumpkins' favorite bands), what with the layered guitar texture, which sometime takes precedence over lyrics.
To close, Machina is an amazing, powerful album and there is no reason why you should not own it.
Free Music Review: Timeless
Hit: 5 Stars
There's already hundreds of reviews of Machina,but I'm going to add to it anyway,because in my estimation,there can never be too much priase for the Pumpkins,so here goes.In lieu of my usual dry,pointless erzats-editorial style review(which none of you want to read,trust me) I will attempt to make this personal.As one of the apparently few people who thought the gorgeous pastoral mood experiment of "Adore" was a good idea,I was also one of the few who was dissappointed when the Pumpkins decided to "start rocking again" on this album.Since thier earliest work on "Gish" I always recognized a very romantic,slightly dark,Goth-leaning band under all the guitar-grinding bluster:to me "Adore" was the band bravely laying it's soul bare,and on "Machina" they seem to be somewhat defensively retrenching behing the wall of distortion again.Not that this is a bad album;on the contrary,I had the most immediate reaction to this one of all thier albums.A huge grin broke out on my face as the snarling guitars and pile-driving rythm of "The Everlasting Gaze" blasted out of the speakers and I realized the Pumpkins were coming out swinging.But then the next four songs totally floored me,"Raindrops + Sunshowers","Stand Inside Your Love","I Of The Morning",and"The Sacred And The Profane".Mixing "Adore"-like atmopheric laments with "Mellon Collie" sonics,these aching,soaring ballads represent the full fruition of the Pumpkins' potential and should have been huge.It's easy to see why Billy Corgan seems a little bitter at the music-buying public,but,oh,well.As long as it's out there for fans of well-crafted,heart-felt music to cherish,that's all that matters.I also like the massive psychedelic jam "Glass and The Ghost Children".It's the loosest,most improvisational sounding thing I've heard from them,and it never fails to send chills down my spine.Also "Heavy Metal Machine" is another classic.I would put this just a slight notch below "Adore" simply because of it's reliance on overt "Hey,look,we rock again!" moves,but it's still among my absolute favorites.Free Music Review: How would one describe their best friend or loved one?
Hit: 5 Stars
This album is simply beautiful. I believe that trying to put a review into words for it would do it an extreme injustice. Every song on here comes together to form one beautiful vision. I don't know what that vision is, but it sure looks pretty. The production is excellent and unlike any other record I have heard or owned (which is a lot). The songwriting is excellent. The lyrics are excellent. there are fifteen songs on this disc that are my soundtrack to the end of human civilization. from the opening rocker "The Everlasting Gaze" with the beautiful chorus. to the last pseudo acoustic song "Age of Innocence" which is the view of someone staring oblivion in the face and accepting their fate thus, hence the lyrics "desolation yes, hesitation no". The album give off the feel of being sad, yet at peace with it's own tragedy. A sort of morbid, whistful recollection of it's life and times.
One could say it has an Electro/Euro/art rock feel to it if you wanted to get into genres, but thats unfair statement.
Some of the songs rock really hard like "heavy metal machine" some of the songs are tear jerkers "stand inside your love". None of them really stand apart from each other, but I look at this as a good thing, because this isn't meant to be a jumbled mess of great songs like Melencholy. This was meant to be as one work, each song bound to each other to formulate a better, bigger picture. A lot of people didn't like this album when it came out, and I would like to classify that under one of the great wonders of the world, but, eh, to each his own. This is what I will say to you, If you are a fan of music. Not any genre in specific, but a fan of music. Don't just download a song and dismiss the whole record. dl all the songs if you have to, or borrow it from someone, listen to it in it's entirety, and pay attention to it. If you feel the same way I feel about it by the time you finish. Then this review will make perfect sense and won't be the ramblings of some crazy dude. I think that this album is something that everyone should experience at least once, like Europe.
Go. Listen. Now.
Free Music Review: Excellent...
Hit: 5 Stars
When I bought this album, I forced my self to promise that no matter what MACHINA sounded like, I would at least listen to it thoroughly with an open mind. Frankly, I didn't expect, and I didn't care if this album sounded or didn't sound like the Pumpkins other brilliant efforts. I basically listened to it for the first time not to compare it to anything else, but to simply discover if I enjoyed the music or not. I loved the music. MACHINA is different from anything else the group has done, which seems to dissapoint some, but enthralls me. It is fine if someone prefers older Pumpkins albums over the new material, but it seems selfish to desire MACHINA to be a duplicate of Siamese Dream. For those who were surprised and bitterly dissapointed that this new album wasn't a greatest hits album: How can you possibly expect that ANY musician will not want, in their entire musical carrer, to expand his/her musical landscape and evolve as an artist? Its ridiculous! MACHINA has a certain addictiveness to it, which maybe credited to its heavy production, which some may call pretentious, but I call ambitious. Good rock music should not be limited to a guitar, bass, and drumset. Of course, I love bands that tend to go the more garage-sounding route, but I have also come to embrace the idea that music is allowed to be as "grand" as it wants ( once again, some people will undoubtedly confuse "grand" with pretentious-a biased conviction which even the GREAT Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was exposed to ). Some of my favorite songs on this album include "Stand Inside Your Love", "I of the Mourning", "The Crying Tree of Mercury", and "The Age of Innocence"; all are examples of fabulous, and oddly addicting songwriting and arrangements. Of course, these four songs that I have named are not the only tracks of note -- I really liked every track on this 15 track CD. Overall, Pumpkins fans will either love this album or scorn it, and MACHINA interestingly seems like it could have some appeal to people normally not venturing into the world of alternative rock. A must have.