Evil Empire - Rage Against The Machine

1996 saw the long awaited release of Rage Against the Machine's second album 'Evil Empire', a much darker and heavier album than their self titled debut. In league with their political stand point the title is in reference to the name given to the former Soviet Union by Ronald Regan and other conservatives. Although the album was produced 12 years ago it is interesting to note the same political concerns are still prevelant. Featuring less innovation and more melody from the guitar and more production on the vocals. The line up remained the same with legendary guitarist Tom Morello, vocals by Zach de la Rocha, drummer Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford on bass. The album was ...  Read the complete review

Well to take a bit of a break from Shed Seven and Runrig I decided to pull something a bit heavier out of my collection after seeing Audioslave on MTV2. No not the Audioslave album but an album by Rage Against the Machine who no make up 3/4 of Audioslave. This album was released back in 1996 and is considered to be their poorest album. The band were an American 4 piece who started out playing in some ones front room in Orange County, California. A good number of RATM (from here on) songs are political protest songs but that shouldn’t put you off as they are quite good as well. As I mentioned 3/4 of Rage are now in Audioslave, after Zack left a couple of ...  Read the complete review

Firstly, I just want to say, now this album is as good as the first album and, yes, this is as good as anyone else I can think about’s best album. In other words… This is a very good album, a masterpiece in it’s self, but off the back as their self-titled album it really was going to find it difficult. And don’t worry; Tom Morrello is still a legend on this album. The Cons Okay, let’s get the cons over us. Firstly… Zack’s voice. It seems like he’s a lot older now. Last album, his voice sounded like he hadn’t gone thru puberty and well even though this must read very corny, it sounded better. It ...  Read the complete review

This is a problem faced by many bands.... 1990 - Your band explode onto the international rock scene with a revolutionary debut album, that was, and still is an absolutely fantastic album... 1994 - After four long years you release the follow up to the debut mentioned above. How could any band follow up such a great album? Zak De La Rocha, Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Timmy C set out to find a way... This album is very different to their self-titled debut. The rapping and lyrics are greatly improved and their is far more variety in between the individual songs, this is the story of an ever changing band... Track 1 - People Of The Sun: ...  Read the complete review

Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire - 1996 Guilty Parties: Vocals - Zach De La Rocha Guitars - Tom Morello Bass - Tim Bob Drums - Brad Wilk 1. People of the Sun - Morello lets you know he still has the creativity from the start, he pulls out an Alan's wrench and plays this horizontally. De La Rocha already showing he has improved lyrically since the self-titled debut, "Since 1516 minds attacked and overseen/Now crawl amidst the ruins of this empty dream/Wit their borders and boots on top of us/Pullin' knobs on the floor of their toxic metropolis/But how you gonna get what you need ta get?/Tha gut eaters, blood drenched get ...  Read the complete review