Rage Against The Machine
“Come on, what did I ever do to you?” – The Machine
“There’s a big difference between ‘Guerrilla Radio’ and ‘Nookie,’ you know?” – Tim Commerford
“I majored in social studies at Harvard, but my true major was rock guitar playing.” – Tom Morello
Albums Reviewed:
Rage Against the Machine is a band I’m reviewing for several reasons I believe have become attached to me very easily. First, I’m “the nineties guy.” Second, their catalog is small and I’m lazy. Third, my ubiquitous friend Al loves them. So there you go. But what do I think of them? Well, I do like them, and I will eternally respect the fact that they might be the only band in the history of the world (outside of Faith No More, if you want to classify them as such) to make “rap-metal” good, intelligent, and interesting, because just about all of their followers are absolutely horrendous (and, if you remember the time Tim Commerford protested Limp Bizkit’s beating them for something at the MTV awards by climbing like 50 feet up that giant set on stage and refusing to come down, the band is well aware of this, too). They were somehow able to combine loud, seventies metal riffs, punk spirit, and a vitriol-spouting, openly Socialist MC with dreadlocks into something that worked both artistically and commercially, and that, my friends, is an impressive feat.
However, they were not without issues. Instrumentally, only guitarist Tom Morello is above “decent,” and while his superb riffs and grooves, topped off with utterly insane guitar “solos” that sound like a fly being squashed by a tennis racket or something are the best and most admirable aspect of the band, they’re also the only admirable aspect of the band, at least musically. The rhythm section of drummer Brad Wilk and bassist Tim Commerford is average at best and a pair of complete hacks at worst, and, as I allude to several times in the reviews, it’s actually Morello’s responsibility to build and maintain most of the songs’ grooves, which is made even more retarted by the fact that this is a hip-hop band, so if a song doesn’t have a good groove it becomes borderline worthless. Frontman Zack de la Rocha is an engaging and interesting rapper, but he is completely unable to portray any emotion besides “pissed-off, violent political anger,” and while he is very good at doing it, his lack of range, combined with the rhythm section’s lack of ability to do anything interesting, makes this band nothing but a one-trick pony, albeit a raw, angry, and often extremely enjoyable one. If you like this band’s style, you will like this band. If you don’t, you won’t, because they only have one style. Standard, uninteresting rhythm track. Big, heavy, possibly groovy riff. Extremely interesting guitar solo. Socialist political rants (which can get a bit tiresome, since this is one of the few bands I’ve come across that makes even me go “hooooooold up there, lefty”). End of Rage Against the Machine song.
Lineup! I’ve already mentioned everyone, but I’ll point them out now because I’m sure several of you would appreciate that. From left to right, and surely running straight towards the Capitol so they can protest something even I don’t give a shit about, are drummer Brad Wilk, frontman Zack de la Rocha, Harvard-educated guitarist Tom Morello and his hat, and bassist Tim Commerford (or “Y.tim.K,” because he’s weird) and his odd, shoulder-covering tattoos. Since the band’s break-up in 2000, Wilk, Morello, and Commerford have, as I’m sure you all know, hooked up with former Soundgarden screamer Chris Cornell to form the musically uninteresting supergroup Audioslave, who are defiantly sorta OK.
And, onto the reviews!
Doug Harvey (hockeystats@hotmail.com) writes:
A comment on your reviews for
Rage Against the Machine: I disagree with your
assessment of Tim Commerford (ie "average at best and a pair of complete
hacks at worst"). I'm a bassist; my favorites are The Ox and the Fish. I'd
easily rank Commerford as one of the top 4 or 5 bassists of the nineties.
Take a listen to some of these songs. You may change your mind on Timmy C:
- Nice solos on "Calm Like a Bomb" and "Bomb track". Not
"My Generation"...
but still very good.
- Great slap bass on "Take the Power Back", especially the variations
- "Bullet in the Head"- great main riff, the verses with all the
diads are
creative and fun to play
- "Know Your Enemy"- listen to how he starts playing high-pitched
diads
instead of the usual "C# B A e" during Tom's solo
- "Maria" and "New Millenium Homes": he's going nuts during
Tom's solo
- Lots of time's he just playing simple stuff during Tom's solos (ie
"Bulls
on Parade", "Freedom", "Wake Up") but at least it's
interesting and sounds
good.
In closing I will leave you with a diagram:
Just about every bassist from the 90's < Tim Commerford < etc < The Ox
< The
Fish < ME
Rage Against The Machine (1992)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Killing
In The Name”
The first thing you’re gonna notice about this album, and by far the biggest reason Rage was actually able to make rap metal, a genre I place somewhere between modern jingoistic Toby Keith new-country and 35-minute Danish yodeling solos in terms of consistent quality and listenability, actually work, is Tom Morello’s guitar playing. Zack is a great frontman and all, and the fact that this band is actually intelligent doesn’t hurt, but the main reason for this band’s success was always Mr. Morello. First off, his riffs, especially on this record, Rage’s best, are consistently excellent. It’s generally Tom’s responsibility for carrying on the groove of these songs, because Rage’s rhythm section has never been all that spectacular, and when he hits, he hits, specifically in the opening trio of “Bombtrack,” “Killing in the Name,” and “Take the Power Back,” probably three of the top 5-10 songs Rage has ever done. Second, when Tom goes off on a solo, it doesn’t actually sound anything like a guitar solo. Tom sounds like he has a closet full of effects boxes and distortion doohickies (I don’t play guitar at all, and I have no idea what I’m talking about), and when it comes time to lay down a solo in the bridge or whatever, instead of trying to be Eddie Van Halen and double-tap his way to hard rock heaven, he fucks and he bends and he does, well, who the hell knows (I told you, I don’t play fucking guitar!) until Rage’s songs are filled with all sorts of lovely and wonderful squeals and squeaks and keyboard-y things that don’t sound like a guitar at all! It’s great stuff, and it almost singlehandedly makes Rage, who have a very limited back of tricks outside of Tom’s making weird sounds, enjoyable and interesting.
The quality of Tom’s effects box yumminess is pretty consistent throughout Rage’s career, but it’s here on their self-titled debut that they clearly slap together their most impressive set of compositions, even if it’s not the godlike experience that Jack Feeny makes it out to be. For one thing, “Settle For Nothing,” outside of a very tasty, almost jazz-like, lightning-fast Tom solo (Oh, sure, he can do they Eddie Van stuff every now and then, he just chooses not to), is just plodding and uninteresting. See, this band doesn’t have melodies. They’re a RAP-METAL group, so the insistence of their grooves, the quality of Tom’s riffs and solos, and the immediacy of Zack’s rhymes (I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever used the word “rhymes” in this context in a review. Go me and my hipness!) are what make or break a Rage song. On “Settle For Nothing,” the riff doesn’t really do anything, the groove is nonexistent (because it’s not like the rhythm section can do jackshit without Tom’s help), and Zack just screams without any attempt to be interesting. This band is not the most diverse in the world. Those are the three ingredients. Riff, groove, and rhyme. Any flashy, cool Tom solos are just pretty flowering, so the cool one found in “Settle for Nothing” can’t save the song.
Thankfully, that’s pretty much the only misstep. Tom performs very strongly throughout the rest of the record, and Zack helps out with a very high number of immediately memorable lines, from “BURN, BURN, YES, YA GONNA BURN!” in “Bombtrack” to “FUCK YOU! I WON’T DO WHAT YA TELL ME!” in the superb “Killing in the Name” (picture any other rap-metal band in the history of music coming up with that line, picture how it would sound coming from them, and then marvel at the fact that Rage, due to their intelligence, honesty, and true anger, make it work) to plenty of others. Zack actually doesn’t have to rhyme as much on this record as he does later, and a few songs get by without much quality effort from him. What does he contribute to “Know Your Enemy,” for instance? The main part of the song sounds almost punk-like, with Tom’s guitars absolutely booking it, and all Zack can do is half-heartedly yell out “know your enemy!” in a voice so buried in the mix you can barely hear it. Then the song goes into some sort of creepy “I got no reason…” vocal section that sounds like Jerry Cantrell before Tom rips off possibly the best solo of his career. How’d he get his guitar to sound like that, anyway? The hell? I like how the last ten seconds of the song are Zack by himself yelling out “ALL OF WHICH ARE AMERICAN DREAMS!!” but the thing went almost five minutes without his help and still ruled. This is the only Rage album on which that can happen.
Now, this album was made in the nineties, and it’s over fifty minutes long, so (as you’d expect) the first half (outside of “Settle for Nothing,” which might be the worst song on any of their non-covers LP’s) is slightly stronger, but what makes this record the best of their career is that second half is only a minor letdown from the first. The main, scratched wah-wah groove section of “Wake Up” is absolutely superb for instance, and makes me thing I might actually like rap music as a genre until I turn on MTV2 and see a Chingy video. The other thing I like about this record is that the songs are longer. Now, I don’t mean that “longer = better” or some such retarted prog-addled thing. No, see, the five and six minute lengths of many of the tunes on this record allow for multiple sections and extended jamming, which, because Tom Morello was completely on top of his game at this point, are usually very interesting. Every song has its main riff/groove part and Zack commie-raps, and these are all well and good, but you’re not gonna get the goofy mid-section of “Freedom,” with a weird little groove and cowbell usage followed by Zack’s growling like Serj Tankian and the band’s absolutely kicking my ass, on too many other Rage records. The songs are just more varied and interesting here. Not that the band has more than two or three very closely-related styles they can play in, but throwing them all into the same song and tying them together seamlessly is an approach I like seeing these guys take. It makes “Township Rebellion” a good song! Because the main section is almost as clumsily plodding as “Settle For Nothing,” but the jam sections during the song are endlessly interesting. Some of Tom’s best guitar work on the album can actually be found there, which makes it a shame that the main riff took three seconds to half-heartedly shit out.
So! Good album. Definitely Rage’s best collection of songs, which shouldn’t be surprising given how limited their musical range is and was. They were a rap-metal band with a mediocre rhythm section! They were lucky to have Morello’s guitar antics to make them good and de la Rocha’s leftist rants to make them relevant. They never got substantially worse than they were here, but they never got any better, either. And the album cover is quite possibly the best I’ve ever seen.
mtlhead@mchsi.com writes:
Hey, it’s nice to see you’re finally
reviewing RATM (I’m using acronyms because I’m lazy). Their debut is a big
favorite of mine and I just can’t say I quite agree with you there. First of
all, you make the rhythm section sound like a bunch of hacks (which might have
been your exact words), but my personal opinion is that they’re really great;
they just play sort of restrained in a lot of the songs, but they go absolutely
ape-shit at the end of Killing in the Name. I also have to disagree with you
about all other rap metal bands sucking: Korn, when not doing nu-metal, or most
of their rap metal songs, are pretty good, or at least decent. And what do you
have against rap music videos? There are a lot of hot “fine-ass bitches and
hoes” in those videos, so just mute them. Oh, right, RATM. There are a couple
of weak moments on here, but considering the first time I heard this it was
like a religious experience for me, I give it an unconditional 10/10, Five
Stars, A+ and whatever else. Besides, just because you’re hung like a moose
doesn’t mean you have to do porn.
Joe Federico
writes:
Chingy’s the man.
Joe Federico
writes:
I’ll back him up to any reader
who wants a piece.
Dominick
Yeah, this album is good.
But the part of "Know Your
Enemy" in the middle that goes all quiet and creepy
that you said sounded like Jerry Cantrell is actually
sung by none other than.... Maynard James Keenan!
Yep, just check the liner notes. Unless you
downloaded the album, in which case just take my word
for it. And that cover does indeed rule ass.
Evil Empire (1996)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “Bulls On
Parade”
God, the cover of this album rules. I wish I could give this record a better rating. The cover is just so fucking cool! But I can’t. It’s mediocre and it’s sluggish and, except for about four totally kickass rap-metal communist awesome songs that kick my ass, it’s just much, much weaker than their debut. But the album cover and title are both so AWESOME! The bright yellowness is very pretty, and the little wise-ass kid in the cape is pretty ace, too. It’s just too bad two thirds of the songs here are halfway listenable mediocrities that don’t annoy me but do nothing more and might as well not exist. That’s a problem.
So, yes, this record is weaker than the band’s debut, although it follows the pattern of throwing three TOTALLY MOTHERFUCKING KICK-ASS songs in a row at the beginning and letting the rest sift by and be average if you’re not someone like me and you don’t pay attention because you’re a goddamn moron who thinks Maroon 5 has any originality at all. The opening duo of “People of the Sun” and the MASSIVELY KICK-ASS single “Bulls on Parade” provides an opening nearly as solid as the debut (and the “RALLY ‘ROUND THE FAMILY!!!!” lines in “Bulls on Parade” are great enough to incite a damn revolution by themselves), and the following “Vietnow,” with its “Nah, fuck it, turn it off!” lines is great, too, but from this point on the difference in quality between the band’s debut and its follow-up become all too apparent. When you have the miniscule stylistic range of Rage Against Capitalism, if your songwriting (read: Tom Morello’s riffs) isn’t firing at 100% quality capacity, you’re in trouble, and that’s simply the case here. The rhythm section continues to be as uninteresting as it was last album, and Tom continues to come up with all sorts of neat effects boxes and sounds to make parts of the songs interesting, but what can you do when his riffs are second-rate and can’t carry on the groove? You shouldn’t be leaving it to the guitar player to carry on the groove anyway, but that’s what Rage does. He carried on fine on the debut, but be can’t hold up the weight here.
OK, so the punky “Revolver” can be said to kick some ass without much debate from me, and the other single “Down Rodeo,” tucked about two-thirds of the way through the record as nineties albums tend to do, is also a very good song, but nothing else left even begins to leave an impression on me. The remaining seven songs all, simply, sound exactly the same. And it’s not that I can sit here and tell you specifically how the songs left aren’t great shakes. But it’s precisely that I can’t that makes this the weakest studio offering Rage ever served up. Except for four or five songs, the material on this record defines “forgettable.” Is it “bad?” No, not really. Everything here is better than “Settle for Nothing,” for instance, but so little provides me with anything new. The groove in “Bulls on Parade.” The guitar sound in “Down Rodeo.” The rhymes in “Vietnow.” These are great shit, but these are the exceptions. There’s so little to recommend here that you can’t find in a similar and/or superior way on other Rage albums. Tom’s still the sound master (“Down Rodeo!”), but there isn’t a single riff here that jumps out at you in the way “Bombtrack” or “Killing in the Name” did from the debut. Zack is less interesting than before except for the great songs I’ve already mentioned. Thy rhythm section still provides very little reason for me not to kill them slowly and painfully. Rage Against the Machine is a stylistically limited band, and if their small number of ingredients aren’t working at peak efficiency, they’re simply not very interesting to listen to. I can’t even talk about specific songs! Because ALL THEIR SONGS SOUND THE SAME! Basic/non-groovy rhythm track + loud riff + cool, freaky solo + Zack’s angry, pseudo-commie political rants. That’s a Rage song. That’s every single Rage song ever made. So you’ll just have to trust me that those ingredients, which were cool and innovative on the band’s debut, are stale and samey here. Because I’m the dude with the website and I said so.
The Battle
Of Los Angeles
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Calm Like
A Bomb”
Christ, why the hell did I ever decide to review Rage Against the Machine? It’s been seven years now, and their style still hasn’t changed one iota. I mean, sure, this one’s actually really good, but why should I sit here and type up a damn review when I could say “well, they still sound exactly the fucking same, but the songs are of a quality closer to the debut and aren’t so powerfully, forgettably average anymore?” That’s all it is! The second record got rid of some of the extended lengths and cool jammy sections that made the debut so interesting (something I completely forgot to mention in the last review, but who gives a shit?), and this record continues in that direction, but in a positive way, with focused, compact, three-minute songs containing the usual Tom acrobatics, but with added interesting vocal contributions from Mr. de la Rocha, and the rhythm section is still mediocre. Rage has not tried to reinvent the wheel here, ofcourse, because they have such tiny stylistic range and the simply can’t do it. But you probably knew that when you started listening to this band in the first place.
OK, so I find it interesting that this band continues to insist on putting their best songs and at the start of their records, and always sticks their KEY single in that track #2 slot. “Killing in the Name,” “Bulls on Parade,” and “Guerrilla Radio.” All tracks #2. But oh lord does Zack make “Guerrilla Radio.” “AW! HELL! CAN’T STOP US NOW!” As I mentioned in the intro, Zack only has one emotion he’s able to convey (anger), but when he conveys that emotion effectively, he is one bad-ass motherfucker, and he he’s probably more consistently interesting on this record than he’s ever been before (and he better be, since the lack of mid-song jam sections makes his vocal contributions more crucial than ever). The chorus to “Calm Like a Bomb,” for instance, might be my favorite Rage moment ever. “WHATCHA SAY WHATCHA SAY WHATCHA SAY WHAT!!!” When Zack wants to, he can sound simply awesome, and he does just that on this track. The whole opening half of this record kicks ass, really, from the ubiquitous singles “Guerrilla Radio” and “Sleep Now in the Fire” (Great Tom riff and solo work there, by the way) to the opener “Testify” and the usually unmentioned, dramatic little track “Mic Check (Once Hunting, Now Hunted),” for which Tom provides some of his best texture work. Like I said, these are all basically three-minute songs, and there are no ultra-groovy or ultra-heavy mid-sections to kick your ass, but the tracks are very concise and focused, and are effective in a way much if Evil Empire simply wasn’t.
Alright, again, the second half isn’t as strong as the first. IT’S A GODDAMN NINETIES RECORD ALBUM! What do you expect? I don’t like “Born as Ghosts,” whose opening guitar sound just gives me a headache, but the rest follows the debut album’s pattern of “good, but slightly less good” instead of the “Evil Empire” pattern of “defiantly mediocre.” I love the moment where everything but Tom’s guitar goes away during “Born of a Broken Man,” for instance. And Tom’s feedback solos in “Voice of the Voiceless” are very effective, especially since, as I’ve mentioned before, Zack’s contribution to this album is far better than last time (love that “watch the decision of Dred Scott as it reverses” line!). I’d also like to complement to feedback shit in “Ashes in the Fall,” too. Tasty! I mean, yeah, the songs still tend to blend together into a sort of mush, due largely to the complete hackhood of this band’s rhythm section, but whatever. I enjoy the second half of The Battle of Los Angeles. The riffs seem fresh again, and Zack seems like a star again. They don’t give off the stale vibe that Evil Empire did, and I can’t even say why all that specifically, because, let me say it again, this band has no stylistic range at ALL. Critiquing these damn albums comes down to purely subjective analysis at some point. The debut was very interesting. The second album was a bit stale, boring, and repetitive, and this record, while not of the quality of the debut, is still much more fresh, exciting, and focused than the last one. Tom’s guitar contributions still rule ass. Zack is at his most engaging. The songs are of good but not great quality but make up for it by being so focused and not rambling at all, and the rhythm section still SUCKS MY ASS. This band was around almost a decade and didn’t change what they did one little bit. They are boring as ass to review.
Renegades (2000)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “Renegades
Of Funk”
Usually a covers album is what comes about when a band has run out of ideas (see: A Perfect Circle’s recent eMOTIVe piece of crap), and considering Rage Against the Machine has been basing their entire career around something like three (albeit generally very good and well-executed) ideas since 1992, I’m a little surprised it took until 2000 for them to slap a covers album together. Unlike eMOTIVe (which was only made to be a political statement), it at least feels like a worthwhile exercise in music, and I like how the band tried to provide almost a musical biography of themselves in the songs they chose (hip-hop, punk, and classic rock are all represented in equal proportions here), but eh. I probably like it a little more than Evil Empire, but unless a band is Van Halen, covers albums from major artists are generally a waste of time, and this one is no different.
Like
I like very little of the first half of this record, the exception being the SUPERB cover of Afrika Bambaataaa’s “Renegades of Funk,” which might actually be my favorite Rage performance on record. It’s just so ace. Zack totally nails the rhymes, Tom picks out this weird fly-buzzing guitar sound, Brad Wilk actually provides a groove I can get down to without much help from Tom (since he’s still making that fly-buzzing noise), and the “now move sucka…MOVE!” section is just fantastic. Superbly done! The cover of Devo’s “Beautiful World” is pretty but incredibly slow and quiet (well, not really “quiet” per se, because of the damn production), and it sounds very odd coming from this band. Finally, yet another hip-hop cover I know nothing about (EPMD’s “I’m Housin’”) and yet another sluggish cover of a classic punk song (Minor Threat’s “In My Eyes”) round out the section of the album that, bar “Renegades of Funk,” I really don’t give two shits about.
The rest
just about rules, though. The Cypress
Hill cover “How I Could Just Kill a Man” is just as vintage Rage as “Renegades
of Funk,” for instance, if not as high quality.
Zack seems to need these cathartically yelled choruses to get across his
anger effectively (you know, “BULLS ON PARADE!” and all that), and the “how I
could just…KILL A MAN!!!!” one here fits the bill nicely. Very nice.
And the rest, all classic rock tunes any self-respecting music fan
really should have heard by now, are all very good as well. The Stooges’ “Down on the Street” is played
pretty much straight like “Kick Out the Jams,” but this time the rhythm section
nails the groove, and Tom decides to
toss in some vintage, squealy solos on top of the riffage, which is great.
Finally, the band deconstructs Bruce Springsteen’s “The Ghost of Tom
Joad,” the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man,” and Bon Dylan’s “Maggie’s
Farm” completely, turning all three
into totally traditional Rage songs with loud riffs and hyper Zack raps and
everything. Some people look at these
reworkings (especially “Street Fighting Man,” which you wouldn’t be able to
recognize at all if not for the
title’s being repeated in the chorus) and become quite angry. They ask: “How could Rage sully such classic
songs?” My answer? “Would you rather have the band do them
straight? See Zack de la Rocha try to
sound like Dylan? That would be
atrocious!” If they cover a Rush song,
should Morello grab onto Zack’s balls the whole time so he sounds like Geddy
Lee? Goddammit, people, THIS BAND HAS NO
STYLISTIC RANGE!!! Rearranging the songs
into versions they’re comfortable with is what they should be doing, and I’m glad they came out pretty well instead of
ass-poor like the minor key boredom shitness of
However, that only makes half a record of real good stuff (some of which is a good bit weaker than their originals) and half a record of not-so-good stuff (some of which is complete crap), so a mere rating of 6 is both fair and appropriate. Only “Renegades of Funk” can really be placed up with Rage’s best material, and it’s a goddamn covers album, and therefore anything higher would just be silly. I should also add that the CD has two bonus tracks, live versions of “Kick out the Jams” and “How I Could Just Kill a Man” that annihilate the studio versions, but not enough to make me think this is worth spending $19 on.