Evil Empire

04/16/1998 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
John Kordosh

The no-frills sound of Rage Against The Machine's latest--and first since 1992's self-titled release--can safely be described as a feisty mix of industrial, rap and metal, all pureed in an atonal blender. The basic Rage premise (heavy on the repetition, not much you'd actually call singing, a loud/quiet/loud songwriting ethos) doesn't produce the kind of songs you'd like to sing or dance to...it's more the kind of songs you might like to open your veins to.

Which I assume is the idea. The formula produces some winning moments. "Bulls On Parade" is kind of catchy in a Rageish way. The oft-repeated lyric "They rally 'round the family with a pocket full of shells" will have you bopping your head in agreement. "Vietnow" (a really excellent title there!) appears to be an anti-radio song; the Machine claim "Fear is your only god on the radio," and they probably have a point. My favorite is "Down Rodeo," which refers to the famed shopping avenue in Beverly Hills. It features a cool four-note synthesizer and one-octave-note bass riff with some record scratching thrown in. The key lyric? "Driving down Rodeo with a shotgun." Well, I guess no deep analysis is needed here. (By the way, could "Bulls On Parade"--bulls is old-time slang for cops--be a dark reply to Randy Newman's whimsical 1977 tune, "Jolly Coppers On Parade?" A disturbing thought.)

There's stuff that's probably overdone on Evil Empire. Too often do weird, one-note noises find their way into the songs. There's a curtain all over the vocals that render most of the lyrics unintelligible, although this perhaps is not all bad. (I found one lyric on a song called "Tire Me," cruel and gratuitous: "I wanna wear dark sunglasses/I wanna be Jackie O/Oh, oh, please don't die.") Rage Against The Machine's vision may be black and white--they're certainly not for everyone--but I'll give them points for internal consistency.