It's Coming Back Around Again (Evil Empire - Rage Against The Machine)

Member Name: Andy.mack

Product:	Evil Empire - Rage Against The Machine
Date:	09/12/03 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The guitars and drums sound amazing

Disadvantages: The vocals in places

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 years ago to pursue a solo career and has hardly been heard of since.

Band
****

Zack De La Rocha: Vocals
Tim Bob: Bass
Brad Wilk: Drums
Tom Morello: Guitars

People Of The Sun
****************

This track starts with a bass intro before the drums come in and then the vocals and bass come in after that. The lyrics are almost rapping but not quite as Zack seems to have a talent for singing pretty quickly. The song picks up for the chorus, which is basically a couple of lines repeated over and over before the verses come in again. The bass and drum sound superb on this song and the guitar plays an important role as well.

“It’s comin’ back around again,
This is for the people of the sun”

Bulls on Parade
************

This is probably my favourite track on this album, starting with a loud drum and guitar intro, which sounds brilliant. It moves onto the vocals with the guitar taking on the song on its own for a short time and then the drums and vocals exploding at about the same time. The main appeal of RATM has got to be the music, you could put any vocals to the music and it would sound amazing. Although Zack’s vocals add something to Rage that I feel Audioslave miss.

“Rally
Round Tha Family’
With a pocket full of shells,
Bulls On Parade”

Vietnow
*******

The next song starts in a similar style but with the guitar first and then the drums before Zack comes in with the vocals. The introductions to Rage songs are superb and worth listening to on there own, without even bothering with the rest of the song. Quite a chilled out song with the drums and guitars jut drifting along while Zack sings away. You can see from these previous few songs why bass player Tom Morello has won countless awards for his playing.

“Check tha new style ollie found,
I tune in wit a bullet ta shut down”

Revolver
*******

After the last track you could really do with something a bit shorter and that track is Revolver. It starts with echo’s and samples before the guitars and drums come in strong and hard with a real rock vibe to them. You kind of expect something like that after the 40 second intro. The vocals come in quiet and you can barely hear them while the drums keep a beat and the guitars carry along. It picks up a lot for the chorus with everything picking up the pace and the volume. Then back to as it was for the next chorus.

“ Pictures of fields without fences,
Her body numbs as he approaches the door”

Snakecharmer
************

This starts with a quick drum role and then the guitars come in and the drums pick up a good beat with the vocals coming in soon afterwards. The vocals again for the verse are a little hard to understand but the musical element of the song is just amazing, with the guitars and drums just playing away. The vocals are a bit mumbled, which is a bit annoying.

“Sleep and wake, and serve,
Don’t think just wake and serve”

Tire Me
*******

Starting with the bass on its own, the drums come in and the guitars and then vocals in quite quick succession. T
his is a much faster song than the last one with the guitars and drum really picking up the pace and Zack’s vocals going pretty fast you can hardly hear what exactly he is singing about. To be fair even though you can’t really hear the lyrics, when you read them in the book as they are meant to be in the song, it does actually sound pretty good.

“Who passed away with the truth,
Amidst tha eulogues of bliss”

Down Rodeo
***********

This is a pretty long track and another favourite Rage song. It starts in the normal loud fashion with the drums and guitars, before chilling out a bit. The guitars on this track sound amazing and this time you can actually hear what the vocals are actually meant to be. As far as RATM songs go this is a pretty mellow one but even then its not saying much. The guitars are superb all the way through and the drums add a superb beat to the track.

“A ballots dead so bullets what I get,
A thousand years you had tha tools”

Without A Face
*************

This starts with just the guitar and then the drum comes in with the vocals and then the bass adds a good booming sound to the track. The song starts quite mellow but lifts up drastically for the chorus with the vocals really suiting the style. The song seems to be a song about the holocaust and racism, so covers quite deep subjects. The guitars really sound at there best during this track especially where it really gets heavy towards the end.

“I tried ta look back ta my past long lost,
A blood donor ta tha land owner holocaust”

Wind Below
**********

A quite intro with a single hit of the drums signalling the right place for the guitars to come in and start to wined there way to wards the vocals coming in. The vocals are basically spoken for the most part of this track but at least you can hear them. The drums and guitars again add something to the
track that would cause a lesser band to disappear. The songs are pretty long which adds a bit of value into the album.

“Flip this capital eclipse.
them bury life wit Imf shifts, and
poison lips”

Roll Right
*********

Again starts with a guitar this time playing a short burst before the drums come in to form a long intro with the vocals following that in. Zack’s vocals do sound great on tracks like this where you cant really imagine it sounding like anything else. The guitars play a strong role again with the drumbeat sounding good again. All the songs have a chilled out vibe to them that you just sort of hear them but don’t think about it at all.

“Come back , rewind one time,
Here comes the hands on the leashes”

Year Of Tha Boomerang
********************

Starts with a drastically out of tune guitar before the vocals come in and the music starts with the drums and in-tune guitars coming in at the same point. The song has a dark edge to it that’s hard to describe but makes it sound so much better. The chorus isn’t really defined too much from the song as it keeps the same pace. Although the song does change to a faster pace completely for small sections that don’t really mean anything and then hit it back into the mellower (if it can be called that) verse.

“In The Year Of Tha Boomerang,
I got no property but yo I’m a piece of it”

So there we have it that was Evil Empire by RATM, probably not to many people’s tastes but if you like Audioslave and have never listened to Rage then it’s pretty much a similar style. The album is available from amazon.co.uk for a very reasonable £6.66.

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