A guest musical rant from when I was exiled from the blogosphere
At the time of it's release I said I would not be able to review Audioslaves Out of Exile; however, Mike Mott(the disturbed mind behind The Blog to End All Blogs) has been kind enough to supply a thorough review of the album. His unedited rant is below.
Much has been said about the supergroup Audioslave, the pairing of the instrumentalists from Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell. The one thing I have noticed is this: after two albums, it's safe to say that four of the greatest innovators of 90s rock music are tired of innovating and just wanna rock.
Not that that's a bad thing. I was never a fan of Rage Against the Machine, and thought Soundgarden was hit or miss, but I was nevertheless intrigued when the quartet released their self-titled debut album. Unfortunately, for me that first album ran too long (radio hit "I Am the Highway", compelling on first listen, just put me to sleep after a while) and it listened like a collection of four or five great songs surrounded by filler.
Out of Exile is an improvement over Audioslave, and while its best songs aren't quite as great as "Set It Off" or "Shadow on the Sun", it is a more condensed, solid and varied effort than its predecessor.
Opener "Your Time Has Come" starts out more earnestly than "Cochise", and the band comes out rocking on the first few songs. First single "Be Yourself" (wisely chosen as it is the best song on the album) leads into the nice, relaxed groove of "Doesn't Remind Me", which features strong Cornell lyrics dripping with irony.
On later songs, the group wears its 70s rock roots on its sleeve. "Dandelion" listens like a late 70s pop-rock song (I'm still not sure whether the "ooh"s are from a female guest vocalist or a very falsetto Cornell). The bass line "Yesterday or Tomorrow" evokes memories of Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion", but its own lyrical sweet emotions don't prevent it from rocking.
"The Worm" is the strongest track in the latter half of the album, sporting a great stop-start dynamic and some clever lyrics (my personal favorite is the line "I took advice from the wrong shoulder"). Meanwhile, "Man or Animal" and "The Curse" fall flat.
Throughout the album, guitarist Tom Morello again proves himself to be a gifted soloist, with each solo sounding unique to the song and often sneaking up out of nowhere, even though structurally you're expecting it. The rhythm section bolsters the songs by sounding less formulaic and in many cases just as inspired by jazz as by rap-rock.
Yes, the strong structures are all verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-verse-chorus. Yes, some of Cornell's lyrics are basic. But as with their first album, the liner notes proudly proclaim "All sounds made by Guitar, Bass, Drums and Vocals". Obviously this group just wants to produce some solid, straightforward rock music, and they succeed. 6.5/10.
Thanks to Mike for his effort. I expect that more collaborations will be needed in the future.
All the countdowns are in the previous post.
Much has been said about the supergroup Audioslave, the pairing of the instrumentalists from Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell. The one thing I have noticed is this: after two albums, it's safe to say that four of the greatest innovators of 90s rock music are tired of innovating and just wanna rock.
Not that that's a bad thing. I was never a fan of Rage Against the Machine, and thought Soundgarden was hit or miss, but I was nevertheless intrigued when the quartet released their self-titled debut album. Unfortunately, for me that first album ran too long (radio hit "I Am the Highway", compelling on first listen, just put me to sleep after a while) and it listened like a collection of four or five great songs surrounded by filler.
Out of Exile is an improvement over Audioslave, and while its best songs aren't quite as great as "Set It Off" or "Shadow on the Sun", it is a more condensed, solid and varied effort than its predecessor.
Opener "Your Time Has Come" starts out more earnestly than "Cochise", and the band comes out rocking on the first few songs. First single "Be Yourself" (wisely chosen as it is the best song on the album) leads into the nice, relaxed groove of "Doesn't Remind Me", which features strong Cornell lyrics dripping with irony.
On later songs, the group wears its 70s rock roots on its sleeve. "Dandelion" listens like a late 70s pop-rock song (I'm still not sure whether the "ooh"s are from a female guest vocalist or a very falsetto Cornell). The bass line "Yesterday or Tomorrow" evokes memories of Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion", but its own lyrical sweet emotions don't prevent it from rocking.
"The Worm" is the strongest track in the latter half of the album, sporting a great stop-start dynamic and some clever lyrics (my personal favorite is the line "I took advice from the wrong shoulder"). Meanwhile, "Man or Animal" and "The Curse" fall flat.
Throughout the album, guitarist Tom Morello again proves himself to be a gifted soloist, with each solo sounding unique to the song and often sneaking up out of nowhere, even though structurally you're expecting it. The rhythm section bolsters the songs by sounding less formulaic and in many cases just as inspired by jazz as by rap-rock.
Yes, the strong structures are all verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-verse-chorus. Yes, some of Cornell's lyrics are basic. But as with their first album, the liner notes proudly proclaim "All sounds made by Guitar, Bass, Drums and Vocals". Obviously this group just wants to produce some solid, straightforward rock music, and they succeed. 6.5/10.
Thanks to Mike for his effort. I expect that more collaborations will be needed in the future.
All the countdowns are in the previous post.
posted by Aaron at 3:53 PM
1 Comments:
Wow, that really is long. My apologies to the rest of Aaron's readers.
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