Review Summary: Smashing Pumpkins' last album in the original line-up, a solid collection of songs.
Smashing Pumpkins ‘Machina: Machines of God’ (2000) Review by Neil Burns
Background:
This album was the Pumpkins’ last in their original line-up. It’s a mix of Mellon Collie’s rock moments and Adore’s slightly electronic, gothic leanings.
However, the criticism for the Pumpkins later re-forming with only Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin is a bit unfair ; anybody who knows anything about the Pumpkins knows that the band only ever really was Billy and Jimmy. It’s no secret that Billy played most if not all the guitar and bass parts on every Pumpkins record, as well as the vocals, and wrote the songs, riffs and lyrics. Jimmy handled the drums ; Jimmy and Billy had, by the mid-90s, an almost symbiotic relationship. Their chemistry during footage of the final show, in December 2000 doesn’t look like two musicians who are about to go separate ways. They are very much in the zone and read each others’ minds when they come to finish a song, or hit out a jam. Two of the best musicians of their generation, easily.
Track-by-track review :
Everlasting Gaze is the first track and it’s a great way to kick off the album. The leading single, it’s a great heavy riff with a The Cure-esque chorus lifted up by some reverb on the guitars. The acapella section isn’t to everyone’s taste – but it’s different, at least. Then the riff kicks back in with just an open string throb that is reminiscent of something Rage Against the Machine might do. Really good.
Raindrops + Sunshowers tries something a little different. It’s a bit like 1979 from Mellon Collie, flows along nicely. I wouldn’t give it as many repeat listens as Everlasting Gaze but it’s a nice musical venture.
Stand Inside Your Love is the big single from this record. As good as Today or Bullet With Butterfly Wings, a beautiful love song wrapped up in lovely distortion.
I of the Mourning is a standard rock song, builds up with its chorus of ‘radio, radio, radio… What is it you want to change?’ A great Pumpkins track with more of that classic open-string *** going on.
Sacred and Profane – Lyrics that are heavily Biblical, as is often the case with the Pumpkins, and more of that cool and jarring “open-string ***” as Billy described Siamese Dream’s “Rocket” – he says without that stuff he can find guitar music often boring. It is certainly a nice spacey piece.
Try, Try, Try is a great acoustic ballad. A Jonas Akerlund short film accompanies the piece, about homeless heroin addicts in Stockholm. Very depressing, but great art nonetheless. Billy wears red eyeliner in the video. It’s bizarre.
Heavy Metal Machine has its critics but it’s a good catchy rocker. The line “If I were dead, would my records sell? Could you even tell?” is perhaps the nadir of Billy’s lyrical output, which has previously given us classics like “Life’s a bummer… When you’re a hummer”. That said, this song has good pulsating riffs and builds to a cool crescendo, and has an epic chorus.
This Time is another nice acoustic song that Billy is adept at writing. Right back to the likes of Disarm, and Stumbeline, it’s a lovely song that goes around and around.
The Imploding Voice – An almost silly sounding melody over some nice synth left over from Adore, but a good song nonetheless.
Glass and the Ghost Children – The album’s centrepiece. A huge, sprawling, empty, dark, soft-rock journey. It clocks in at about 10-odd minutes, and at least 3 of those are a genuine recording of Billy talking to his therapist over soft piano (yes, really). It ends with a quiet guitar and outro mantra, “as she counted the spiders… as they crawled up inside her.” Apparently this whole album is a concept album about a mirror image band of the Pumpkins, called Glass and the Ghost Children, and Glass is the lead singer. There’s also references to his girlfriend, June, who has been name-dropped on songs as early as ‘Rhinoceros’ and some Mellon Collie tracks. It’s the whole story of the Pumpkins that Billy was working on through the 90s, his life’s work. There’s an image online of a drawing Billy did that explains it all. It’s fascinating stuff, and makes you appreciate the record all the more when you know. Apparently Mellon Collie is a concept album too, a day in the life of a teenager supposedly a la James Joyce’s Ulysses, but it’s more difficult to spot whereas there’s a very big death/life/rebirth theme going on in all the tracks here, which is akin to a band splitting up, which is what was happening. Beautiful, epic and haunting, this track is easily the best song here, if not the best song they ever did.
Wound – In the mould of Imploding Voice, a perfectly good number, but not hugely memorable. There’s a lot of songs like this on the record – slightly mellon-collie (to excuse the pun), some keyboard layered over a good pop hook vocal.
Crying Tree of Mercury – A dark song , very similar to Adore’s “Tear”, a cool track almost like Nine Inch Nails or something. A tad depressing, though.
Age of Innocence – After the Mercury song we needed picking up a bit, I think, and Innocence gives it a shot, but I think the next track With Every Light does that much better.
With Every Light – I once made love to this song and it was absolutely glorious.
Blue Skies Bring Tears – A bit of a downer to end the record on, but then again it is a pretty depressing record. It’s as good as the other non-standout tracks ; Wound, Imploding Voice, etc. Perfectly good cut, but not wonderful.
Overall –
There are no bad songs on this record, it’s pretty strong material. Some are a bit boring in places but they aren't ever bad. If you like the Pumpkins already and haven’t heard this, it’s as good if not better than Gish or Adore, but not as good as Siamese Dream or Mellon Collie. If you haven’t heard SP yet, go for the latter two I mentioned there first to get into them, they are all-time classics. This is a good album though in its own merit, and you can’t help but wonder that they wouldn’t have kept making strong material through the 2000s had they not split at the beginning of that decade.
Choice Cuts – in no particular order -
Everlasting Gaze
I Of The Mourning
Glass and the Ghost Children
Stand Inside Your Love
Try, Try, Try
Heavy Metal Machine
With Every Light
