By Tom McHenry
Staff Writer

The Smashing Pumpkins have always managed to succeed in doing the unexpected.

The band's first big—selling album "Siamese Dream" was followed not with a quickie follow—up dashed off between tours, but by "Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness," a two—CD masterpiece of alternative rock. Billy Corgan's poetic lyrics aren't backed up by similar music, but distortion heavy guitar licks and high-quality drumming. Although Corgan's voice, which sounds like a stray cat with a sinus infection being strangled to death, should be annoying, it only adds to the angst—filled flavor.

But for a band that thrives on the unexpected, "Machina/the machines of God," its new album, is unexpectedly typical.

It is a new album, but paradoxically, it manages to sound like the old Smashing Pumpkins.

While "Adore," the band's last album, was one of its finest, it was also one of the poorest selling. The Smashing Pumpkins were then left to try to recapture the fan base they lost with "Adore's" more melodic songs and deeper lyrics. What follows is a set of 15 songs that forget anything similar to "Adore."

Not that the lyrics on "Machina" are shallow. It's doubtful Corgan could write a really shallow song. But there's an emptiness present in this album at times. And it's not the good, angst—ridden emptiness listeners have come to expect and enjoy from the Pumpkins. No, this is the emptiness as Corgan sings in "The Crying Tree of Mercury:" "This is the song I've been singing my whole life." In other words, there's no growth here for the band. If anything, the band regresses to its "Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" days, which wouldn't be such a bad thing had the band not been steadily progressing towards future masterworks beyond that and not radio friendly pop songs for the tortured teen.

The other aspect of the old "Melon Collie" days that is now missing is the lack of soft and gentle angst songs to punctuate the hard and heavy angst songs. These songs gave the band's music balance and the listener a release, but aren't present in "Machina."

The closest thing to a soft moment in "Machina" comes with the last song "The Age of Innocence," where the loud drums and distortion are absent in the beginning of the song, letting the lyrics shine and the voice come through.

The album has a unified look to it as well, capturing the look and feel of an old Victorian text, right down to the poorly aligned text and lyrics and a series of plate paintings with storybook—like captions.

These faults don't overshadow the album; they just make it feel painfully watered down. Few things are more painful than listening to a band that steps back from the band's own potential to gain a bigger audience.

Its also entirely possible though that this potential was just a fluke and the Pumpkins have turned out the best album the band can in "Machina." If so, it's still a strong album with several high points that’s fun to listen to and sing along with. But it's also a tragedy that with just a little work it could have been so much more than it is.