Before I decided to buy Machina I had already heard a few of its songs, all of which had deeply impressed me, so needless to say I was expecting great things from the rest of the album. Although I was slightly underwhelmed by my first listen, Machina grew on me over the next week or so, and MAN IS IT WONDERFUL!

The album, it seems, has two sides to it, both of which are amazing in their own respects. One is the dark, mystical side represented in songs such as the morbid "Crying Tree of Mercury" and the truly haunting "Glass and the Ghost Children".

The other, more prominent, side is the euphoric, triumphant side, created throughout most of the album by arena-filling guitars, dreamy synths and soaring vocal melodies. If pure, euphoric experiences are your thing, look no further than Machina because songs like "Raindrops + Sunshowers", "Try, Try, Try" and "This Time" have got you covered. And of course, if you just love hard Pumpkins rocking, there's plenty of that in the mix too.

At 73 minutes, some may call Machina too long, but I love it that way; it becomes more like a blissful and adventurous dream than a CD, with each song leading perfectly into the next like the pages of a story book.

The only thing I have a problem with is the last minute or so of "Blue Skies Bring Tears" (is there even a guitar behind that distortion!?), however this is the tiniest of blemishes on an otherwise BRILLIANT album.

What's your favorite album at the moment? Because it's about to be eclipsed by Machina.

This would be a fairly decent album if you knocked about six songs off of it. But that's not how things worked out when MACHINA was created. The heavy rock songs ('The Everlasting Gaze', "Heavy Metal Machine", "The Imploding Voice") are good, but the more melodic bits seem far too overproduced and full of a marshmellow-like substance.

I give the album three stars because, if you just skip some of the less impressive tracks, it's actually not a bad listen.

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.

While the album is considered a loose conceptual album, to me it is purely about the triumph of the human spirit. This album hit me like a ton of bricks and is considered some of the best songwriting I have ever heard. I find it necessary reading the lyrics while absorbed in this album. The lyrics are what heighten the experience just as "Adore". I had been hit hard by the fact that after finding out that this along with "Adore" has neither been as commercially successful as their prior albums, I rationalized it by realizing it was at a point in their career when many people have turned their backs on them. What makes these two albums absolute gems in my opinion is by the fact that especially Corgan wanted to follow his heart without many outside influences. If these albums were to top or equal the sales of "Mellon Collie" then I would not help but feel sick and tired of the massive popularity by the songs possibly being over-exposed but fortunately for me, they are not. The music is utterly brilliant. I could almost see how "The Everlasting Gaze" is often compared to the weaker "Zero" but to me the former is a stand-alone song with not much comparison. It is the intense ethereal beauty throughout the song that makes it dissimilar. This album shows the ethereal side of the Pumpkins more so than on "Adore" while that album presented more of a darker atmosphere. Mostly I find many of these songs completely mesmerizing. "Raindrops + Sunshowers" is also unearthly. "Stand inside Your Love" is an affecting song and lyrically associative. "I of the Mourning" is heavily introspective as well as uplifting. My personal favorite is "Try Try Try" which is the strongest song on the album. It is emotionally upsetting when even thinking about this song. There were unjustly comparisons to "Disarm" and while that is a good song, it does not even remotely come close to the perfection of "Try Try Try". The music elevates along with its assuring and positively uplifting lyrics. It is powerful and easily identifiable. This is a rarity when it comes to many metaphoric lyrics. "This Time" and "The Imploding Voice" are other songs with strong heartfelt lyrics; it is as though he wrote these songs about me. The way he writes about despair, love, inevitability, isolation and loneliness is of the highest caliber and maturity level than most of their early to mid 90's music; it is completely astounding. This is exactly what really makes me deeply appreciate Billy Corgan's songwriting. The high-flying epic, "Glass and the Ghost Children" is also extraordinary. The philosophical "Wound" is also incomparable. The glittery "Blue Skies Bring Tears" and the drizzle of "The Crying Tree of Mercury" are also exceptional. This is another truly personal epic album from Smashing Pumpkins. I prefer their more grandiose works, which outshines here for the most part. The only fault I would state considering this album is that I find it partially asymmetrical. In the midst of some of the strongest songs ever heard there are others that are mainstream such as "The Sacred and Profane". I was almost disappointed in that song expecting something ostentatious and profound appropriate to the mystifying title. The only other ordinary track is the final song, which is "Age of Innocence" and the bonus track, which is featured on the vinyl called "Speed Kills".

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.

Such an awesome album! Love this band and all their albums for that matter. Anyone who doesn't like this has absolutely NO appreciation for good music.

This album is absolutely amazing. The lyrics are intellectually stimulating with both songs of struggle,addiction,and love. Billy Corgan created another masterpiece in my eyes.

Firstly it's Billy CORGAN not Corrigan! anyway, i am of the opinion that the smashing pumpkins are incapable of bad music - it's all very meaningful and a lot of it powerful - an amazing mix of genres. It's terrible they broke up but i love Zwan too

A pretty good album, lots of classic Pumpkin tracks here, and a pretty good way to say goodbye to their fans. It could have been better, I admit, but it's still good.

Machina is a great album. ALL of the songs are good. "Stand Inside Your Love" is a wonderful love song, and "Everlasting Gaze" (hence the name) just kicks ass. Billy would look terrible with a tan!

the return of the rock! really complex concept album...honestly how were we supposed to figure it out? ANYWAY, get disc... I of the Mourning makes me cry

A real mix of music and idea's here. It's essentialy a combination of Adore and Siamese dream, With Billy and Co using the much loved heavy guitar chords and riffs with the electronic and machine (no pun intended) keyboards and synth work. I really enjoyed the album but feel that you have to listen to it quite a few time to really ge into it. Tracks to look out for are Heavy Metal Machine, A Power chord laden old stly rock song and Age of Innocence, which kind of sounds like Tonight, Tonight, with haunting melodies and great work by James Iha.

The pumpkins official last album with the impending break up after the tour is a back to basics album, the single pull off of old pumpkins style. Overall a good album, though not as original as they once were.

Beautiful blast of sonic rock without any filler.

It seems like each successive album that the Pumpkins puts out is worse and worse. Billy Corrigan needs to spend some of his $$ and time at a tanning bed.