I'd pretty much written the Smashing Pumpkins off after their severely disappointing fifth (and assumed to be final) album, MACHINA/The Machines of God. The laughable attempt at storyline, the terrible songs, and the ungodly production flourishes glued the final sequin on Billy Corgan's velvet-lined coffin.

Though I'd been a fan for many years, even through 1998's unfairly maligned Adore, I didn't bat an eye when Corgan announced the band's imminent breakup. Then comes this new, hastily issued "final album." Rejected by their label, the band printed 25 copies (consisting of three 10" EPs and a 2xLP set) on their own imprint, gave them to 25 people, and instructed them to distribute it digitally. This was their best option to get the material out, since Virgin would have blocked any attempt to release it on another label.

It would be extremely easy to dismiss this album as Billy simply taking out the accumulated garbage of the past couple years. It would be easy, that is, if it didn't almost redeem the Pumpkins. You certainly can't accuse them of trying to make a buck, as they've probably lost at least a couple hundred printing up the source copies of this Internet-distributed release. And it's all the more frustrating that this album features an abundance of tracks that throw the deficiencies of their previous record into even sharper relief.

Within the first three songs, I'm immediately reminded of everything I ever loved about the Smashing Pumpkins; perfect examples of the dream-pop/arena-rock hybrid they forged back in 1993. The performances are, for the most part, raw and mostly live sounding, with some tracks actually recalling the glory days they spent in Butch Vig's basement. Basically, you get the one thing missing on MACHINA I: the sound of a band playing.

But there's plenty of filler in this set, too, and it's not really sequenced to be played as a continuous album. Several songs are unnecessarily repeated. And did we really need a "demo" version of the still-awful "Heavy Metal Machine?" Probably not. But all these faults aside, within this collection resides an album that would have been infinitely superior to The Machines of God. The high points are high enough to erase any bad taste left by that album.

Songs like "Dross" and "Glass' Theme" could have provided the "return to rock" that MACHINA I failed to deliver. The long-standing live favorite "Let Me Give the World to You" could have been the hit single the group never managed to score. "Here's to the Atom Bomb" sounds like an answer to "1979." "Vanity" and "Home" are simply gorgeous, songs only the old Pumpkins could have made.

There isn't really any new ground broken here, but the band revisits nearly every style they've adopted over the years. Throughout, they sound energized and at a creative peak. Jimmy Chamberlin's muscular, fluid drumming provides the backbeat missing from the Pumpkins' music for the last couple years. James Iha has developed from a merely competent rhythm guitarist into a creative lead player, providing a spacy ambience to Corgan's power-riffing. And as easy as it's been to dismiss Corgan as a fame-hungry self-aggrandizing egomaniac over the years, this set proves that he's also a songwriter of considerable talent.

So ultimately, take this as a proper farewell to the Smashing Pumpkins-- it's a nice album to remember them by. Believe me, it's the last album I expected to enjoy this year. But the thing that really puts the icing on: it's free.

-D. Erik Kempke