Rage Against The Machine – Rage Against The Machine (1992)
[Album 145/1001]
Apt band/album name.
Nowadays, bands are advised to keep the intros short in order to be more radio-friendly. It would be a shame to trim these instrumental openings as Rage may have done them better than anyone else in the 90s.
The intriguing bassline to open Take the Power Back, the Kashmir-esque Wake Up intro (which made for a good outro in The Matrix), and the clean Bombtrack opening pattern (essential repertoire for any budding high school guitarist back in the day).
Bombtrack is a representative sample of the record as a whole: stellar opening, decent follow-up riff, the song gradually becomes less interesting as it approaches the 4-minute mark. Then Killing in the Name of bursts in with another great intro and the pattern continues.
The riffs: who else had the funk of Frusciante, muscle of Metallica, and even drift into McCready/Gossard territory (on Freedom)? His influences may have been noticeable, but the unique mix of sounds and effects is unmistakably Tom Morello.
While Morello & the De la Rocha rants get most of the attention, the contributions of the rhythm section are solid. Ditto the blink-and-you’ll-miss it cameo on Know Your Enemy by Tool lead singer/Arizona Vineyard owner Maynard James Keenan.
The benchmark for metal rap.
Love this one. For Christmas, I just got the “XX” edition, the 3 disc thing. It’s amazing how fully-formed these guys were even in the demo stages. I don’t think they ever topped this album.
Agreed – some strong singles in later years, this one’s likely their most cohesive set. Definitely doesn’t sound like a rookie album!
No it doesn’t, not at all. And Morello was easily the most original guitar player of the era too, so even if you hated rap-rock, you had to begrudgingly give these guys credit.
It took me a while to warm up to Rage myself, but ultimately Morello won me over. I love this album!
Love love LOVE this album. Still in regular rotation around my house. Fun fact: Tom Morello played French horn in his school days. We should probably be best friends.
To quote Wayne Campbell, I was not aware of that – besties you should be!