Patti Smith's pretensions are as important to her as feedback—both give the music the kind of kick and quirk that makes falling off a stage a transcendent experience. Her unwarranted assertions are grandiose, self-serving, impossible but noble. They hold out cosmic solutions, received philosophy, and, especially on Easter, lavish hope. Frequently they don't even fuck up the music; their profusion of exhortation, drivel, hallucination, and poetry complements the verve and, increasingly, the wit of the loud music played by the Patti Smith Group.

However all-inclusive they may seem, Smith's pretensions have never extended to matters of technique, and thematic coherence is not something you look for from her. It's tempting, therefore, to make much of the Christian imagery that runs through Easter. "Till Victory," the album's opening clarion call, is a spacey "Onward Christian Soldiers," very gung-ho on astral holy wars. At the other end is the...