Rage Against The Machine
Renegades
The Band: Zack De La Rocha- vocals
Tom Morello- guitar
Tim Commerford- bass
Brad Wilk- Drums
As many of you in the Sputnik community are already aware of, I recently took a trip to the great boot-shaped yonder (Italy). I was rather surprised while I was there, that I actually got a chance to pick up a couple CDs and at a cheaper price than they would be in Canada. Here’s what I picked up: Rage Against The Machine- Renegades (clearly), Iron Maiden- Powerslave, Megadeth- Rust In Peace and some opera CD they were selling at a restaurant while I was on tour. You know which one I was the least satisfied with? I’m betting a most of you just said to yourselves “the opera one”. Well, if you did say that, you’d be wrong. I believe I’ve mentioned before that I’m sort of a closet case classical music lover, so the opera was great. This is the CD that I was most dissatisfied with, which I found sort of strange because I’m usually really big on cover albums. I love to see bands covering other bands material because I like to them trying to improve upon it, or to see how close they can come to at least duplicating the music. For example, I’m a big fan of Metallica’s “Garage Inc” (who knew?). This album on the other hand not so much. I think this may due to the contrast between
Rage Against The Machine and the bands who wrote the songs they were covering. Now, to be honest I haven’t heard the original versions of all of these songs, but I do know that there’s one written by Bob Dylan and another by The Rolling Stones. Now,
RATM are often hailed as one of the most creative bands of the nineties due to the innovative rapping of
Zach De La Rocha and “The Guitar Wizard”
Tom Morello’s FX orientated solos. Yes, they are an undeniably unique band, but they covered songs by not so unique artists. That’s what I didn’t really like this album. Rage tried to adapt the songs to their unique style, instead of vice versa, which is what they should’ve done. Don’t get me wrong I love to hear bands take a different approach to a song, but in this case it just didn’t seem to work. Pretty much everything seemed off. In most other albums Zack’s vocals really made the album, in this album they seemed to be an entirely negative aspect. Probably because Zack really can’t sing, he can just rap and I seriously doubt any of the original versions of those songs were rapped. There was actually on ballad on this album.
Beautiful World, this tracks rather slow pace made it impossible for Zack to rap. So, guess what he had to do? Sing, and it wasn’t pretty. That track also has extremely repetitive, generic instrumentals making it probably the worst song on the album.
Tom Morello also didn’t really seem to do too great of a job. He just didn’t seem into it. Tom loves to experiment and I think having songs just laid out for him to learn may have discouraged him some. He did however manage to throw a few of his trademark FX loaded, feedback full (in a good way) solos into the mix. Although, they were nowhere near up to par with his solos from other albums. Overall, I think a big part of the problem may have been song selection. They should’ve picked some more guitar oriented songs for Tom, a few with more active bass as it appeared
Tim Commerford didn’t do too much in this album. He had a couple of standout riffs, but they weren’t very well written. Instead of picking songs based on that, they just picked songs with a rebellious, angst message.
Regardless of the fact that the songs on this album weren’t written by RATM this album still has a similar overall feel to the rest of their albums. Most likely because of the song selection (and the fact that they adapted the songs to sound like them). Anyways, I guess the best word to describe the overall feel would have to be disgruntled. Almost every track is some sort of cry out against the establishment, or about how it’s time for a rebellion. Things along those lines. To be honest I don’t really mind these this message, it’s just that at this point in RATM’s career it’s getting kind of old. I’m not sure if Zack had a rough childhood in poverty or something, or he’s just an angst individual. Whichever, it appears that he can’t sing about anything other than rebellion. Even when doing a cover album. Again, I don’t mind this, but at this point it makes the band seem like sort of a one trick pony. Anywho, this isn’t really an album most people would want to listen to everyday. Unless you’re the rebellious type. Me, not so much. If you’re like me you may enjoy this. You just may not want to listen to it all the way through. I would mix it up with pop-punk. I said I ‘would’ because I don’t like this album, so I doubt I’ll ever listen to it again. Some of the tracks are good if you need to get pumped up for something, though. Take for example
Kick Out The Jams. Listen to that and you’ll be seriously motivated for some a
ss kicking. Aside from being rebellious this album has a depressing hint to it as well. I think this was because Zack’s vocals were a tad softer on this album and the a lot of the words to the songs were kind of depressing. On RATM’s other albums their own vocals were a tad depressing, as well. But, in those albums Zack seemed more fired up. Thanks to him being all fired up the were a lot of songs that could be classified “head bangers” and it’s hard to be depressed and head bang at the same time. This album had few head banging tracks, so it seemed tad more disheartening, which it also makes it harder to listen to, too often.
Tom Morello just didn’t really seem to make a presence in this album. There was a noticeable shortage of solos and the solos that there were lacked length. Also, most of them seemed the same, while solos on their other albums had more diversity. Take for example the solos from
Killing In The Name and
Take The Power Back from there self titled album. Yes, I am aware that these are all cover songs, so Morello couldn’t really throw any massive solos in there and make them fit, but that doen’t change the fact that his guitar work was lacking. Tom just wasn’t meant to do a cover album. Although, I can’t help but admit there was some good rhythm guitar work by Tom. Although, he didn’t write it, his playing was good and I liked the tone on his amp. He just didn’t seem to have the passion that he usually has, though. Let me give you an example. Listen to the power chord progression in the verse to
Renegades Of Funk. It’s potentially a rockin’ progression, but Tom just doesn’t get into it enough, so it just seems average. As does just about everything else about this album.
As I mentioned earlier the band could’ve chose some more bass oriented tracks for Commerford’s sake. The only times he really got to shine were in the intro to
I’m Housin’ and the last few moments of
Kick Out The Jams. Other than that Tim seemed entirely detached from this album. I noticed him playing root notes of what the guitar was playing, rather than write his own stuff more than usual. Although, that is difficult to avoid when playing other bands material. He actually did have a few other good riffs I didn’t pay homage to, but they’re difficult to here. A lot of his bass playing is difficult to hear, actually. It annoys me when I have to concentrate to hear the bass lines. I did however, enjoy the tone on his amp. I always have. It really helps contribute to RATM’s funky sound. He also kept great rhythm throughout, but that’s not that hard to do. It’s more expected than anything else.
Pros: Select amounts of good instrumentation
Cons: Zack
Lots of mediocre instrumental work (I know they didn’t right they songs, but meh)
Track Selection
Overall Rating:
2.5/5
