For the second review in a row,
this album represents the last one in my collection by the band. In the case of Tracy Chapman, I strangely
rolled them in chronological order by release date. In the case of Audioslave, I rolled them in
reverse chronological order. An ominous
coincidence or just the mind’s never ending search for pattern recognition
within the chaos? I’m going with the
latter.
Disc 437 is… Audioslave (Self-Titled)
Year of Release: 2002
What’s up with the Cover? This cover is like one of those conceptual art pieces
from the cover of a seventies sci fi novel, only minus the art. Frozen fire?
Our relationship to the absurd expressed in alien-like landscapes? Finding cold comfort on the deserted beaches
of our own psyche? I could write a
hundred cool introductions to this cover and the art would still fail to
inspire.
How I Came To Know It: As I’ve mentioned on
previous Audioslave reviews, I was introduced to this band by my buddy Chris D.
How It Stacks Up: I have three Audioslave albums, which I believe is
all of them. This is their first and
their best effort. As I noted above,
this again completes an artist and so here’s a quick recap for those who
haven’t been reading along since Disc 25:
- Self-Titled: 3 stars (reviewed right here).
- Out of Exile:
3 stars (reviewed at Disc 329).
- Revelations:
2 stars (reviewed at Disc 25).
Rating: 3 stars, but nearly 4
When I
first got this record I was pretty stoked about how it sounded. Here was visceral energy, with the powerful
guitar licks of Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello matched with the
peerless rock voice of Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell. For about a month I put it on for every
fellow fan of hard rock that visited the house for longer than twenty
minutes. Most reacted with a polite ‘meh’.
Good
friends are the ones who will tell you when your fly is down, when your breath
is bad or when a band is not as great as you imagine they are in the flush of
new discovery. Ten years later, I still
enjoy this album, but I can now see why my good friends weren’t as excited as I
thought they should have been.
First
the good stuff, and there is plenty. The
Rage Against the Machine band is incredibly tight and no one lays down that
rare combination of heavy and funky that they do. These are guitars that dig down into your
innards and get a hold of that mystical organ that I imagine exists somewhere
below the solar plexus and above the stomach.
That spot that always seems to be the source of flight in my dreams
where that’s possible. Power chords seem to find a home there as well, from
which they radiate out through the rest of the body.
Once he’s
honed in on that spot, Morello adds a thousand other strange and wonderful
pieces of genius with the guitar that spread upward to the hippocampus and
other lower reaches of the back of the brain.
It won’t make you breakdance or vogue, but it’ll certainly get you
swaying rhythmically in place.
Cornell
is in fine throat as well, proving why of the three Audioslave records made
this is easily the best one. His voice
is deployed as more of an instrument than a language centre. There are places where he hits me, like the
persistent – and slightly angry – demand to a higher power in “Show Me How To Live”:
“Nail in my hand
From my creator
You gave me life
Now show me how to live.”
He
manages to sing these lines as both prayer and a renunciation of prayer at the
same time. It isn’t great prose on its
own, but it proves that if you sing it with enough feeling, you can make
anything seem deep.
Apart
from the occasionally noticed snippets like this, I found a hard time concentrating
on the lyrics. Usually this bothers me,
but Cornell just fits his voice in with the dense groove of the band so well
that it is just another instrument, to be appreciated on that level first and
foremost. Cornell is just burning vocal gasoline
and we shouldn’t take anything more from it than that.
Speaking
of burning gasoline, when I did notice the lyrics, there were a few too many
songs with highway and driving imagery. In
addition to the powerful and energetic “Gasoline”
alluded to above, the band adds lesser songs like “I Am the Highway” and “Getaway
Car,” both of which I could have lived without.
In fact,
at fourteen tracks, the biggest problem with this record is it is slightly
overlong. I know I’ve said before that
fourteen is the far edge of acceptable, but I’ve also said that every record is
different. For this one, I think a
tightly chosen ten to twelve tracks would’ve ensured only the best appeared. Always leave them wanting more, not less.
Instead,
around track twelve, I found myself glancing at my MP3 player frequently,
checking how many minutes were left in the remaining songs. This is not a good sign. I’ve noticed generally that Audioslave albums
are a bit bloated, and front-end loaded in terms of song quality, and it is true
here as well.
Songs
like “Set It Off” are brilliant, with
Cornell crooning slow and mournfully in parts, only to jump into full throat
when the song kicks you in the tender spots at the chorus. When he croons a bit too much, like on “I Am the Highway” or “The Last Remaining Light” you can see
the shadow of his future overwrought solo albums (both of which I’ve long since
sold). Fortunately these moments are few
and far between.
Also
fortunately, the production on this album is top shelf, perfectly combining the
angst-ridden sludge of Soundgarden and the precise fury of Rage Against the
Machine into something that is new and interesting. I was not at all surprised to find master
producer Rick Rubin was responsible. Mr.
Rubin, I thank you again for all the music you’ve made that much better over
the last thirty years or so.
In
summation, Audioslave’s first effort is their best effort. It has a few minor drawbacks that kept it
from achieving four stars by the thinnest of margins, but those crimes were
minor. If you are ever inclined to give these
guys a chance, this is the place to start.
Best tracks: Cochise, Show Me How To Live, Gasoline, Set It Off, Exploder
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