Review Summary: Here it is, the only rap rock album anyone will ever need.
In 1992 there was a lot happening on the music scene. Nirvana was at the top of the grunge movement thanks to the release of ‘Nevermind’ and the associated ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, the gangster rap scene was growing immensely, with both coasts just starting to square up against one another as their biggest stars emerged; but something else was coming, it’s just nobody knew it yet. It wasn’t like anything else that had yet been released, but that’s exactly the point. This world was ripe for Rage Against the Machine’s picking, and boy did they make the most of it. This was the first album by Rage Against the Machine, and man does it work. What Rage did here was open the doors for a new blend of the rap that was starting to find its feet in pop culture and the metal that had exploded in the last decade and on this album in particular, the fusion really found a home.
The best thing about this album by a long way is the chemistry. The band gel together so efficiently, each member playing their designated role perfectly. Barring guitar solos and short vocal breaks there is not really an instance on the album where one member of the band stands out from the rest of the members. Rather they focus on working together; making a sound that is cohesive, destructive, and relentlessly groovy. Two exceptions were mentioned and I don’t even think these are major exceptions. The main reason is that Tom Morello’s guitar solos are just fantastic. He drowned his guitar in effects throughout the whole album, and his solos are probably where this is the most obvious. But despite this, he manages somehow to take the alien sounds his guitar creates and make them feel like organic parts of the song, rather than treating the song as a stage for him to show off his ingenuity. The vocal breaks too are a means to a unified end. In most of the songs the acapella rapping of one Zach de la Rocha serves to build tension in the music, transitioning the song along from one segment to another, often from a quiet verse or bridge into a heavy explosion.
The general sound created by unifying these four people in the above mentioned manner is electrifying. The songs manage to flow fantastically, using a soft/loud dynamic that was so popular at the time, and the band prove themselves equally adept and the soft, sometimes even muttered parts as they are at the massive sounding breakdowns and choruses. The rhythm section of Brad Wilk and Timmy C fuse together, becoming inextricable from one another. They do the perfect job of creating a tight base for Tom Morello to lay his guitar onto. And what guitar it is. As above mentioned, it is soaked in effects, to the point where the band felt it necessary to include a disclaimer that said something to the effect of ‘There were no samplers or keyboards used to create this album.’ And it was necessary. But try as he might, Tom remained unable to disguise the fact that he is a fantastic guitar player. He spends the whole album laying down riffs that show that while he was a dedicated metal guitarist, he’s also a massive Hip-Hop fan. There is a certain groove to his riffs and also to the movements of the rhythm section that shows that Tom could do more than just shred, he really had a feeling for groove. Zach de la Rocha is the vocalist for this album, spitting hard rhymes over the heavy grooving of his bandmates. There is no singing whatsoever on the album, just rapping and screaming, but this suits the sound better than singing would. He uses his voice almost as another instrument indicating where the sound is going next, increasing or decreasing the tempo and volume of his lyrics as the roar behind him increases or decreases. Technically he isn’t the greatest, there's not much skill to his rhymes, no internal rhyme or any other hip hop skill. It seems though that he was focused on the dynamism of his bars rather than their sound. He’s no Nas, but his vocals suit the band so well that it hardly seems to matter.
This album is for me nearly perfect. I did say nearly though. There are only two problems I can find with the record. One is that it can be deemed fairly homogenous. Almost all the songs barring ‘Settle for Nothing’ sound pretty much the same despite not following the same formula. They all have similar ideas behind them, and even though with each song something new is added by Tom Morello’s guitar, if you aren’t listening to the album and instead just have it on in the background one does start to lose track of which track is playing. The other problem I have with this record, and in fact the band as a whole, is Zach. It’s quite a common belief I think. The political messages just start to wear thin after a while. It feels like he only has one thing to say, but a million ways to say it. Every song features some form of political ranting. It’s not because of his message, he is supposed to be divisive with his point of view, but instead it’s the fact that he only ever manages to say one thing. It would just have been nice if he had done something that either expanded his political philosophy, or else if he had changed topic altogether and instead made something completely new, even on just one song.
Other than these though, this album is amazing. Hearing it for the first time is like being punched in the stomach courtesy to the mammoth sound and frantic energy that the band creates. The fact that the energy is bottled up into three stellar musicians fronted by a man who had something to say, even if it was just one thing, makes the whole sound just that much better. What Rage Against the Machine did here was create a sound, and I can’t imagine a better album to launch it. I just wish someone had been able to follow it up.
