With the doubters hovering round his band following the rock-is-dead pronouncement that preceded the flawed electronic dabbling of Adore, MACHINA finds Billy Corgan desperate to prove everyone, not least himself, wrong. On the Pumpkins' fifth album, they attempt to reclaim the higher ground they dominated with the peerless Siamese Dream and the sprawling 28-track opus Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. As a result they hit the ground running on MACHINA, exploding into life with "The Everlasting Gaze" in a firestorm of guitars and heavy metaphysical thunder. There are some quintessential Pumpkins moments here, notably "Stand Inside Your Love", which soars away on a spiralling guitar solo, and "Try, Try, Try" which taps into Corgan's ever present melancholy. At 73-minutes long, MACHINA overstays its welcome, beginning to flag, ironically, at the self-aggrandising "Heavy Metal Machine". No matter, by this point, the Pumpkins have made their point with brutal grace. --Mike Pattenden

All the other reviews here say why this is a great release but it's worth mentioning that this was meant to be a far bigger project.

Well, record companies often do the stupidest things. Billy Corgan wanted this to be a double CD and they said no. Then Billy wanted to release another album called 'Machina II' (also a double) and they said no again.

Poor sales was their reason but this is the Smashing Pumpkins we're talking about here. Surely a record company should have faith in their artists. Oh, I'm being silly now.

Get this and then head over to the Pumpkins' own site where you can download 'Machina II' for nothing. It makes this whole project make sense. 'Machina II' is a rougher and more life affirming experience and (along with Machina I) you can hear what Billy Corgan was really trying to do here.

I was never a big fan of the Smashing Pumpkins until I heard this album. In fact, I still don't lile a lot of their other stuff now. For me this album stands apart - passionate, melodic, heavy and beautiful. The song 'Try' is simply one of the most moving and beautiful songs ever written. The album is a little overlong though - it could have done with 5 fewer tracks to be more concise.

By the time this album came out, I had entirely gone off the Smashing Pumpkins and everything metal or rock influenced. Due to this, and unfavourable reports from magazines, I largely missed out on listening to this gem of an album.

So when I saw it on offer I thought, why not! At first I instantly regretted my purchase, and saw why most critics didn't like it when it came out. The problem with the initial diagnosis is that it doesn't let you hear the moments of beauty that can be found on this record. If you give this album a chance, it will improve your day whenever you listen to it.

Undeniably, this is not a Smashing Pumpkins album of the usual mold. Sure, it's got some tracks with crushingly heavy riffs just like you'd expect. However, it has a much more pop-y sound to it. Billy Corgan was going through a really tough time when this album was recorded, after splitting from his wife, and tensions rising to unbearable levels within the band, you can really tell that he's expressing his emotions at the time through his music.

Songs like Try, Try, Try and Sacred & The Profane have a nostalgic and happy/sad mix of feelings to them, while being out and out hits. Maybe I'm interpreting it wrongly, but I think This Time was written around the point of the total collapse of the band, even if they had still to realise it.

Sure, there's moments when this album wanes, and has a couple of filler tracks on it (has anyone listened to Mellon Collie lately?) but for the most part it's a piece of brilliance from Corgan et all.

Contrary to popular belief, The Smashing Pumpkins have never 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 since returned for the band's sixth album, Zeitgeist. 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.

i felt like i had to write this, as anyone reading the other reviews would come away with a slightly negative notion of this album. personally, i think it is perfect - i wouldn't change a song on the album or mess with the order of the songs or anything - it is sheer perfection. songs that are wonderfully dark and menacing are broken up by some slightly more upbeat (yet still quite dark) ones, and as for 'Glass and the Ghost Children' being pretentious and whatever else was said - just no. but, whoever said that also highlighted 'try ...' as a standout tune, which sums them up as an sp's fan i guess. totally against any artistic change. that is the beauty of the pumpkins; every album is different, with a totally different mood and feel to it.
i have been a heavy sp's fan for years, and, although this album took a while to grow on me, it is possibly my favourite now (if such a thing is possible to say) and still gets better with every listen (even though it was released seven years ago). However, if you dont get on with this straight away, check out 'Machina II; the Freinds and Enemies of Modern Music' to help gain perspective on 'Machina'