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Rating: ...and the circle closed. Tom Morello, never as active as in recent years, returns to the roots of the music from which he started. After the semi-failure of the Audioslave adventure, there was something off with that group, even though their last "Revelations" wasn't displeasing to me, after his solo adventure as The Nightwatchman, with which he managed to enter through the main door of American folk (numerous appearances with Springsteen), with this new project formed with Boots Riley, he creates something not heard since "The Battle of Los Angeles," the last album by RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE released exactly ten years ago.
BEWARE though not to dismiss the project as a mere replica of the good old days. While on one hand, those guitar riffs that made RATM famous can finally be heard again and the solos with all the quirky effects included (in truth, they were also in Audioslave and perhaps it was precisely those that clashed with Cornell's voice), lyrically, we are distant. Boots Riley is the voice of Californians THE COUP, a longstanding hip hop rap group, and composer of very interesting lyrics, filled with humor and metaphors that willingly strike against rampant capitalism, politics, and society. While on one hand the topics might be the same ones Zack De la Rocha laid out in the lyrics of that band that revolutionized crossover in the nineties, the way of expressing them is totally different.
The fury of RATM remains in the instruments, not in the voice. Ryley's approach is softer, and the rapping is more melodic compared to De La Rocha's shouting. The songs, upon first and superficial listening, might be dismissed as simple revisitations of the revolutionary songs of the nineties. This could be the case, for example, with the initial riff of "Fight!Smash!Win!" until Ryley's voice intervenes, sweeter and more melodic, and the chorus significantly more catchy. The single "100 Little Curses" (the accompanying video is amusing) is a real hit that sticks in your head with all its critiques of capitalism, which has swallowed the globe in this decade's end.
There are still some more violent bursts like in "The Squeeze" and "Shock you again," hard-funk songs, which are nevertheless smoothed by the singing that never goes too over the top. Songs living on always strong and striking choruses and on Morello's inventive guitar, which might be said to sound always the same, but one cannot deny the revolutionary guitar technique, recognizable and hard to imitate. In short, if you've been too long an orphan of RATM's music, you will appreciate this album, as long as you don't compare it to any of their albums, even though personally, I find it very close to "Evil Empire," in approach. Of course, Morello's old group would never have released songs like the danceable "Promenade" or the marching "Clap for the killers". The project is completed by drummer Stanton Moore, recently seen behind the drums of Corrosion Of Conformity, and the presence of the great Steve Perry as background vocals in Promenade.
In short, nothing revolutionary, but something pleasant that acts as an appetizer to the (perhaps) return of RATM already anticipated by last year's concerts.
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