After the predictably messy break-up of the Smashing Pumpkins (kids, don't all be on different drugs and then try and live together in a bus for a year), Billy Corgan went down the all to familiar desperate ex-frontman career path. First he started a supergroup - Zwan who, to be fair, weren't all that bad. They were essentially the 'Pumpkins minus the teenage angst (which must be hard to get back when you're running out of places to put money), which turns out to be quite fun. It was at least better than 'Machina' - what a box of piss that was...

But I digress. 'TheFutureEmbrace' is Billy's response to the critics - an (and I wish I was making this up) electro-shoegaze voyage of self-discovery! With a Bee Gees cover! Predictably, it's a load of wank. The components themselves, however disparate, are pulled off quite well, but there are simply no tunes. Corgan should have done the decent thing and come back with a alt rock opera, in the vain of R Kelly's 'Trapped In The Closet', not this toss.

The guitars sound good, though.

This is such an effeminate effort on Billy's part. Without the punch of Jimmy Chamberlin's drums or James Iha's wall-of-sound wailing, Billy Corgan winds up sounding too thin. Track 2 "Mina Loy (M.O.H.)" is the standout on the record because the lyrics aren't so dramatic and heavy-handed and the music is a good 1980's-style melancholy romp.