The Smashing Pumpkins - MACHINA/The Machines of God
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Free Music Notes for MACHINA/The Machines of God
Free Music Review: At their creative peak, arguably their best.
Hit: 5 Stars
Beautiful songwriting. I need to hear these songs live.
The Everlasting Gaze, Stand Inside Your Love, Heavy Metal Machine, Glass and the ghost Children and Blue Skies Bring Tears are easily better than anything else the Pumpkins have ever written. Every other track on the album is solid as well. Over the years I've mostly left Mellon Collie and earlier albums to collect dust. They're great as well, but this and Adore really are the best. Compositionally and emotionally.
It's also important to consider that the tracks making up Machina are not the entirety of what the Pumpkins created during this period. Machina II: Friends and Enemies of Modern music is a 2 disk collection comprising the rest of the Machina story. This is meant to be enjoyed as a three disk set. Slow down and Vanity are great. My favorites though are Saturnine, If there is a God, Speed Kills, Heavy Metal Machine (Alt Mix), Blue skies bring tears (Alt Mix), Glass' Theme, Cash Car Star, White Spider, Go, Innocence, Soul Power, Dross and In my body. lol, I didn't leave much out there.
The bottom line. Machina owns.
Free Music Review: Their worst to date
Hit: 2 Stars
Parts of this album are too arty for its own good: this is a fine example of the ambition outweighing the capabilities. Songs like "Glass and the Ghost Children", "The Crying Tree of Mercury", "This Time" and "I of the Mourning" are pretentious, overwrought and noticeably lacking in soul or listenablity. Then there's some really dumb heavy rock that is again overwrought and noticeably lacking in soul or listenability ("Heavy Metal Machine"; "The Sacred and the Profane"; hit "The Everlasting Gaze"). Then there's the good stuff. Not much of it, really, but it's all great: my favorite is the hard-rockin' "Step Inside Your Love", a great headbanging song. Well, either that, or the atmospheric, mellow "Try, Try, Try" - nice song there too. I also love the "Tonight, Tonight"-esque "Age of Innocence". That's about it, though. Need I tell you that Corgan's songwriting is gone? He's simply forgotten how to write a powerful, resonant piece of music with plenty of pop hooks like "1979" or "Disarm". So looks like the Smashing Pumpkins are over the hill already. Damn.Free Music Review: "For every chemical, you trade a piece of your soul - with no return."
Hit: 5 Stars
Contrary to popular belief, The Smashing Pumpkins have never (as of June 13th 2007 ;P) released a poor album. Even their three outtakes albums, Pisces Iscariot (1994), The Aeroplane Flies High (1996) and MACHINA II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music (2000) stand up favourably against most of their contemporaries' strongest work.
MACHINA however, is deemed by many to be their worst. Not so. The album's opening six tracks surpass even Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness' (1995) as both a demonstration of their versatility and a signal of intent.
From the incendiary opener 'The Everlasting Gaze' mad-genius singer/guitarist/songwriter Billy Corgan and incomparable skinsman Jimmy Chamberlin bulldoze their way through eight of MACHINA's fifteen tracks, dissecting affecting ballads ('Raindrops & Sunshowers' and the breathtaking 'Stand Inside Your Love'), existential threnodies ('Glass & the Ghost Children' and 'The Crying Tree of Mercury') and plaintive odes ('Try, Try, Try' and 'With Every Light').
MACHINA is also deeply conceptual, even when compared to previous albums, with the album's extraordinary artwork and prose conjuring a phantasmic, seemingly post-apocalyptic alternate reality that puts Nine Inch Nails' dystopian Year Zero (2007) concept to shame. The cryptic story of 'Glass and the Machines of God' is more difficult to engage with than Mellon Collie...'s upon cursory inspection, but further investigation into MACHINA's numerous ancilliary forms is rewarding for those keen to determine a fraction of Corgan's apparent psychosis.
The problem many fans have with MACHINA however, lies in its 'wall of sound' production, as opposed to the Pumpkins' infamous, painstaking multitracking of guitar parts. Nevertheless, as with Mellon Collie..., it was proved that the heavier the involvement of second guitarist James Iha in the recording process, the stronger the album sounds. Additionally, Iha also played many of MACHINA's bass parts, following the resignation toward the end of the sessions of original bassist D'arcy Wretzky after a series of confrontations with Corgan.
Whilst considered the Pumpkins' final studio album for close to five years, Corgan and Chamberlin have been hard at work for the past 18 months readying the band's sixth album, Zeitgeist, due for release on July 9th. Neither D'arcy, Iha (who Corgan publicly blamed for the band's original dissolution) nor Melissa auf der Maur (who took over bass duties for MACHINA's subsequent live dates) are involved in the new project, with newcomers Jeff Schroeder and Ginger Reyes taking on guitar and bass respectively for the Pumpkins' new live incarnation.
Free Music Review: SP at their best...
Hit: 5 Stars
A thoroughly enjoyable prog-rock CD. Especially those last 2 tracks...!Free Music Review: GORGEOUS!!!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
Stand inside your love.. one of the greatest songs i ever heard.. one of the greatest songs ever made..