Stand Inside Your Love

Fair play to Billy Corgan, he's not averse to the odd sneaky slice of humble pie. A mere three years after firing the smackhead drumming bricklayer, he invites him back, though of course it would be churlish in the extreme to suggest this U-turn had anything at all to do with the hobbled nonentity that was the last (drummerless) Smashing Pumpkins album. So having duly tended to his experimental impulses - I have seen the future and it's... trip-hop! With riffs! - we're back on familiar ground, state-of-the-art sturm und drang for those so emotionally blocked they can't feel unless they write 'FEEL' in 500-point luminescent marker across their chest.

'Stand Inside Your Love' is impressive in the way that mirror-windowed black skyscrapers are impressive: it looks/sounds better the further away you are. Close up, we have an ugly, hollow edifice, merely silly Billy mithering his way to yet more millions. From one megalomaniacal harpy to another: Melissa Auf Der Maur is made of stern stuff indeed.