5x****
Big single "The Everlasting Gaze" certainly wastes no time going for the jugular, though except for the spitfire bridge it sounds like a muted version of the pile-driver songs from Mellon Collie. Ho-hum "Raindrops + Sunshowers" is early for one of the weak links, and all it does is delay the satisfyingly anthemic "Stand Inside Your Love"****. "I Of The Morning" (radio radio) seems to aspire to this kind of power, and it does an okay Cure impression, but "The Sacred And The Profane"**** is much stronger, propelled further by the two-part chorus - all this despite owing its sound to Adore. The middle of the album consists mostly of samey mid-tempo trifles like U2 clones "Try,Try,Try" and "Wound". Aptly named "Heavy Metal Machine" and creepy "Glass And The Ghost Children"****, a much better tribute to early Cure like "100 Years" or "Last Dance". The end of the album favors these gothy tracks such as "The Crying Tree Of Mercury" and dirge "Blue Skies Bring Tears", so the the placement of upbeat if a little melancholy "With Every Light"**** between the two feels odd. Closer "Age Of Innocence"**** resembles "Tonight Tonight" at first. It's solid though breaking no new ground, but again it seems misplaced, like something more conclusive should follow. A couple tracks shorter and the album might have rivaled Siamese Dream, at least in consistency, but giving Corgan the benefit of the doubt he's just being generous.
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