THE SMASHING PUMPKINS
Poor, poor Billy Corgan. You can tell the guy wanted to make Machina a super-duper, rootin'-tootin', ass-kickin' Smashing Pumpkins record. I mean, he even went so far as to say he wanted to do as much. And, in fact, this latest installment in the oeuvre of Gen X's Jethro Tull does go a long way in repairing the damage that Adore did to the band's rock'n'roll reputation. But -- Newsflash, Mr. Corgan! -- there is no such thing as an ass-kicking concept album, and, unfortunately, Machina is a Tommy/The Wall/Tarkus-style conceptual "piece." Now, far be it for me to attempt to actually explain the concept here. Because, unlike his '70s forebears, Mr. Corgan has the decidedly '90s knack of trying to sound ultra-important while remaining ultra-vague. Thus, we get "the story of 'Machina/The Machines of God' (c)1999 Billy Corgan" and we get 16 Vasily Kafanov art "plates" that (I guess) are supposed to reflect the story told within the 15 songs here. But, we also get lyrics that sound like the average Corgan pseudo-poetic mope-whine and riffs that are positively adolescent in their chunkiness. Thus, rather than highbrow art-rock, we just get a really pretentious heavy metal album.
And ironically, the fact that Corgan dropped the ball on Machina's "concept" is what ultimately redeems the album. Because if he would have tried any harder to coalesce this "concept," he would have wound up with an album as fractured and incoherent as Adore. As it is, Machina escapes sounding like an almost-great Smashing Pumpkins record that (like most almost-great Smashing Pumpkins albums) gets occasionally bogged down in unnecessary atmospherics and misplaced moodiness. Sure, the opening punch of the super-distorto "The Everlasting Gaze" sets a suitably rockin' mood that's ultimately supported by the dramatic midtempo pop of "Raindrops + Sunshowers" and the "Cherub Rock" bombast of "Stand Inside Your Love." But it doesn't take Corgan long to lose the script and eventually, thanks to messily ostentatious numbers like "With Every Light," "I of the Mourning," and "Wound" (which is probably the album's worst offender), any rock momentum the album works up is ultimately lost.
That's not to say that there aren't some great rock songs on here: "The Imploding Voice" is one of Corgan's most forward-looking rock numbers; "Heavy Metal Machine" fits its title so well, it moves well past any intentional irony; other songs like "This Time" and "The Sacred and the Profane" continue in the Pumpkins' tradition. And, if only Corgan would have been satisfied with the drama and chromatic diversity within these songs, he would have realized that he didn't need to flesh out the "concept" of Machina with such overbearing dreck as "The Crying Tree of Mercury" or "Try, Try, Try" in an attempt to make the album a grand statement.
So Machina winds up being the Pumpkins' worst album to date. Unfortunately, it also happens to contain some of Corgan's best work since Siamese Dream. The self-indulgent, future-rock bombast he's long been striving to create has been mastered. And half of this album is material that completely moves heavy rock forward three or four giant steps. Unfortunately, the other half is so self-absorbed, so "conceptual," so consciously "artistic" and so ruined by shoddy lyricism and unnecessary production that it very nearly ruins the entire package. But, in the end, that's the Smashing Pumpkins ca. 2000, and, in all honesty, if this is the last album from 'em, they… I mean, he couldn't have picked a more appropriate way to end it all.
— Jason Ferguson
www.mtv.com
Machina/The Machines of God
(Virgin)
