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Renegades - Rage Against The Machine
reviewed by Ben Parrish

Well, that was certainly nice of them. I think we have incontrovertible evidence now that the remaining members of Rage Against The Machine are avid Jetstream readers. I mean, who wouldn't have been touched by the genuine hurt and dismay I expressed upon hearing the news of their split with the frontman? No doubt upon reading this, Tom, Tim, and Brad sat 'round one night at their local pub (yes, I'm writing this from London) and said, hey droogs, what say we have a go at one last album for the poor sod? I must say, I think it shows a lot of class for a band to keep releasing new albums after they break up.

Renegades, it turns out, is what one might call an "accidental album". During the production of their delayed (and perhaps now put to sleep) live album, they recorded a bunch of cover tunes to slap on there, as hidden bonus tracks, perhaps. Turned out that they made too many, though, and all of a sudden, they realized they had a whole CD's worth of songs to put out. So they did. Somewhat ironic, then, that there are a couple of hidden bonus live tracks on the first pressing. Yes, let's all have a good hearty laugh about that.

I picked up the CD on December 4th at a Tower Records here at Piccadilly Circus, which was neat because it wasn't released in the US until December 5th. So I am one of the first US citizens to hear the whole album! Unless you count the four or five million folks who had downloaded it off Napster weeks ago. So don't do that. Napster is a foul and evil scourge upon the music industry and the artists whose creative fire fuels it. Napster sucks.

Of the 12 songs covered on the album, I had heard the original version of precisely one of them (Street-Fighting Man, by the Stones). For comparative purposes, I immediately got on Napster, then, and downloaded all the originals. Napster rules.

Of the twelve tunes on the album, I would say that perhaps three or four could be recognized (some just barely) from their original versions. For the rest, the original music (from artists as diverse as Springsteen, Cypress Hill, and Devo) has been thrown away and replaced by whatever hard riffs and funky shit the Rage boys came up with at the time. Make no mistake, this is a Rage album to the core. But then... Well, let's take a listen.

The album starts off innocuously enough, with a track called "Microphone Fiend". And when I say "innocuously enough", I of course mean that it's a standard track with Rage at their best, and everything that comes with that. Earth-shattering guitars, rhythms that make you want to set your own car on fire and then drive it off a Pacific cliff going 120 miles an hour, head snapping and fist pumping all the way down. You know, the regular old shit. Goddamn, I love this band.

Next track is "Pistol Grip Pump", which features the rather charming chorus, "Pistol grip pump on my lap at all times/ They can be fuckin' with other niggaz shit but they can't be fuckin' with mine." Those crazy kids. But there's something to be noted about this track. It was taken from a hiphop "classic" (so I'm told) which has an unmistakably danceable little bass line to it, which is simply an electronic swelling that goes, "doooo, da-dum. doooo, da-dum." It does this a lot. It does this for the whole song, along with various other electronic drums and sound effects. Rage don't do electronics and sound effects. So they dispensed with everything else, and took the cute little bassline and replaced it with fifty-thousand guitars amped far past the healthy level, going "BLAAAAM, BLA-BLAM!! BLAAAM, BLA-BLAM!!" They do this a lot. They do this for the whole song, varying the volume and intensity occasionally between 9.9 and 10. This comprises the entirety of the musical contribution to the track. Two notes. Four minutes. An absolutely huge, bone-crushing groove, but if you don't get this, and you don't like it, this album and this band will never do it for you. I can only deduce from this that you are wrong, and I am right. And if you'd help me up off the floor after it's over, I'd certainly appeciate it.

Then things get weird. The first song which musically resembles its inspiration is the third track, MC5's "Kick Out The Jams". Sounding a lot more like swingy rock 'n' roll than the brain-blasting metal one would expect from the boys, the track causes a faint hint of confusion in the seasoned Rage listener. The confusion continues to grow, until one finds one'sself staring quizzically at his CD player wondering exactly what else it is about this track that's so unusual. Then it hits you. Zack, the dearly departed front-man... is singing! For the first time in four albums, and the first time in nearly ten years, dude is actually singing a musical note or two. It sounds like a punked-out droning of a verse from "Louie, Louie", but goddammit, there it is. Something is definitely odd here, indeed.

The fourth track and radio hit, "Renegades", thankfully returns us to form. Funk, blistering power chords. Ah, good to be home.

But the door to home slams shut for good as the song ends. The next few tracks take us to territory we've not been to with Rage yet. "Beautiful World" - an actual slow, sedate, "unplugged"-style ballad? "In My Eyes" - a furious punk assault? "Street-Fighting Man" - Rage's skewed version of a techno-dance rave tune? What the hell is going on here? Has the world gone mad?

Just a little bit, I think. Cuz it appears that, whether we like it or not, the politically-charged, scorching rap-metal gods of our time... are actually having fun. No, there's no getting around it. There's a sense of joyous experimentation and looseness to this album that bears the ummistakeable scars of the very apolitical concept of fun, all around. How much you like or appreciate this depends on how much you like or appreciate this.

Fear not too much, though. The album finishes with an unrecognizeable version of Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" -- a nearly seven minute epic, featuring one of the smoothest, hardest grooves ever bestowed upon our planet. If you've any soul within you at all, you'll need a nap after it.

Shall I recommend this album? If you like Rage, then I not only recommend it, I demand that you purchase several copies immediately. It is one of the (now) four most hideously monstrous, stampeding hard rock albums in the history of the world. If you don't like Rage, this won't convert you. Then again, I'm inclined to suggest that if you don't like Rage, you are terminally white, and need help badly.