The Everlasting Gaze--The Pumpkins tune their guitars down 2 steps to C and write the heaviest, fastest single they've ever released. The first time you hear it you might laugh at the vocals-only bridge, but soon you'll love it.
Raindrops and Sunshowers--Proof that Corgan didn't want to abandon all the new ideas he tried out on Adore, this song is the counterpart to Appels and Oranjes from that album.
Stand Inside Your Love--Really one of my least favorite songs here, its a very marketable rock/love song
I of the Mourning--The Pumpkins cranks up the volume at the end of this song in an amazing trick that'll give you chills the first dozen times you hear it.
The Sacred and the Profane--Mid-tempo rock song. Really good though. Probably the biggest weakness of this album is that like Adore, Corgan filled it up with too many midtempo songs.
Try, Try, Try--Innovative song structure, very good.
Heavy Metal Machine--Bitter, downtuned metal. Lots of people don't like this song, but its awesome, the guitars have almost a synthetic/plasma feel to them.
This Time--The Pumpkin's breakup song.
The Imploding Voice--Some cool vocal effects, a pretty standard Machina song.
Glass and the Ghost Children--The one song on here that's too long to have ever been released single, its a three-part haunting epic with one of the best Pumpkins bass lines ever.
Wound: Fairly happy, bright acoustic guitars.
The Crying Tree of Mercury--Sounds cool at first, featuring some Chinese gong work, but it probably should have been left off the album.
With Every Light--Corgan sure knows how to write a happy song when he wants to. You can just picture children frolicking in a grassy field.
Blue Skies Bring Tears--Spooky. The man really messed up the last 20 seconds of this song, but otherwise its cool. I'm surprised he decided on this final song structure, there's some other faster versions of this song that I think are a lot better.
Age of Innocence--Maybe the best song on here. The Pumpkins have always ended their albums with dreamy ballads, and here they put in an upbeat rocker that leaves you wanting more. Too bad there won't be any, but the Machina II stuff isn't bad. Try and check some of it out, its inconsistent but songs like Cash Car Star, Dross, In My Body, and Let Me Give the World to You are some of the Pumpkins' best work.

A memorable way to leave
When SP radically changed direction with Adore, people treated the band like they, well, died and started tuning into a new generation of seemingly wannabe artists which are already dying as well. With Machina, Billy Corgan picked himself up with some knoweledge that they were hanging by a thread, the end was near, butknew that Adore couldn't be the way they were going to leave after setting up a good following with Gish, SD, and MC. He succeeded, making this album a major comeback in more ways than one. Jimmy finally returned to the drums after the whole drug/death incident, which, in my mind shows courageousness. D'Arcy left due to some drug problems of her own but that didn't hinder the journey Cogan and company were about to take. To sum up the track layout, it was done fantasically. The Everlasting Gaze basically knocks you on your ass, Stand Inside Your Love brings hardcore listeners back to their early days, The Crying Tree of Mercury stands as one of the most depressing songs they have ever done, and Age of Innocence makes the SP's last gasp count, each lyric confessing what can't be denied with a sad honesty. This is the album to get for all the naysayers who bashed Adore.

Brilliant concept, monotonous execution
MACHINA/The Machines of God has tracks that will shook your seat at least with promising things to come later on, but ends up in monotonous cycle of ad-nauseum until you'll skip the tracks, or has incorporates such melancholy that it drives you off for being too self-indulgent. Has the Pumpkins grew dillusioned of themselves when making this album? Even the B-sides "Judas-O" featured in limited edition issues of their Greatest Hits were plague with such songs. Or Corgan thinks that such concept is fine with him, I can't judge.

The track "The Everlasting Gaze" starts and ends with a bang, a fine tribute to NIN. It hops unto a promising rock fused with club-techno Raindrops+Sunshowers, but it's repetitiveness will drive off even most shallow club music listener, followed by their weakest single and most sappy song ever "Stand Inside Your Love" and rest of the songs don't go so right, as promising as it starts with exception of songs like "Try, Try, Try", excellent Sabbath inspired "Heavy Metal Machine", the gothic "Glass and the Ghost Children" and "The Age of Innocence". Songs such as "The Crying Tree of Mercury" and "Blue Skies Bring Tears" are the most promising songs because they evolve further of Adore-concept songs and yet ruined by mediocrity.

Immedietely, they go out with a whimper. I suppose you can't blame the pressure on the Pumpkins by critics to go back the yonderin' days of Gish and Siamese Dreams ever since their supposed flop Adore. And mind you, Adore is their finest Pumpkins album ever produced. Shows you why you should stick to being yourself.

Amazing
This CD has to be one of the best CD's ever made. I admit that I am a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan but that's not why I like this CD. To me Billy Corgan is able to place his feelings onto the tracks which makes this is by far the most emotional CD the Pumpkins have ever done, even more the Adore. Its the romantic side of Billy in the sense of loss and longing. Many people don't like this CD as much as older Pumpkins work, because it is different. The song aren't earth moving rock songs with powerful rifts. These songs are soul crashing rock songs. I highly recommend this CD for everyone who is open minded. This is the perfect ending CD for the Pumpkins that leaves the listener satisfied.
With the doubters hovering round his band following the rock-is-dead pronouncement that preceded the flawed electronic dabblings of Adore, Machina finds Billy Corgan desperate to prove everyone, not least himself, wrong. On their fifth album, the Pumpkins 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" and its firestorm of guitars and heavy metaphysical thunder. There are some quintessential Pumpkins moments here, notably "Stand Inside Your Love," which soars away on a spiraling 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-aggrandizing "Heavy Metal Machine." No matter--the Pumpkins have made their point with brutal grace. --Mike Pattenden