CD Odyssey Disc 437: Audioslave

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) 

Artist: Audioslave

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:

1. Self-Titled: 3 stars (reviewed right here).
2. Out of Exile:  3 stars (reviewed at Disc 329).
3. 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

CD Odyssey Disc 329: Audioslave

On Friday this week, I worked out at the gym, and then I spent the next two days helping two different friends move.

As a general rule, I always help people move. It just seems the right thing to do, and as a positive side effect, I've never wanted for cheap labour when my turn comes around. That said, today I am a bit sore from all the physical exertion. This condition does not lend itself to listening to hard rock. In fact, once I had a couple listens in on this next album I switched to some 'non-Odyssey' listening in the car, and got in a few rounds of the Cowboy Junkies 1992 album, "Black Eyed Man".

But that is not today's review, since until we get into a little hard rock, there will be no advancement in this crazy quest I've put myself on. So without further ado...

Disc 329 is...Out of Exile

Artist: Audioslave

Year of Release: 2005

What’s Up With The Cover?: Not much. Audioslave has three albums, and all of the covers look like someone putting the band name on top of a bitmap from some generic Microsoft wallpaper. That said, as generic wallpaper goes, "Waves" is nice enough.

Besides, back when I reviewed their third album "Revelations", I couldn't even find a photo of the record to post. I've since taken to just photographing my CD cover and posting that - it is actually easier than seeking the CD cover art, and yet another argument for buying - not stealing - your music.

How I Came To Know It: I was introduced to Audisolave by my friend Chris D. "Out of Exile" was their second album, and I bought it when it came out a few years back.

How It Stacks Up: I have three Audioslave albums, which is all they made before splitting up. While considerably better than their final record, "Revelations", I am going to put "Out of Exile" a close second behind their self-titled debut. It is a photo finish though, albeit between a couple of slower horses.

Rating: 3 stars.

It has been over two years since I last reviewed an Audioslave record - all the way back to Disc 25, in fact. At that time I gave "Revelations" a lukewarm reception, and admitted that while not everyone likes "Audioslave", I do.

Since that time, my opinion on Audioslave has diminished a bit, but I still like them. When I first heard them, I thought they were the perfect rock amalgam: Rage Against the Machine's angry metal/funk sound driven by Tom Morello's guitar, and ex-Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell's soaring rock vocals.

All of these positives are clearly present on "Out of Exile." In fact, Morello is in fine form, able to shift between powerful riffs on songs like "Your Time Has Come", to quiet background grooves on "Doesn't Remind Me" to amazing 'look what I can do on the guitar' moments on songs like "Out of Exile". Often he pulls all three together seamlessly in a single song.

Cornell has a powerful rock voice and it is on full display throughout the record. Unfortunately, my musician friend Kelly recently pointed out that he tends to use the same vocal tricks on every song. Since I'm not a musician I can't explain what it is, but I can't help but hear the similarity of his approach to everything he does now that it has been pointed out.

While this may move Audioslave from a pleasure to a guilty pleasure, I can't deny I still like what I hear. Besides, apart from Morello's alien wizardry on the guitar, "Out of Exile" is essentially a straightforward hard rock record. Good for driving fast, and playing loud. It isn't particularly innovative, but what it does it does very well.

My favourite song on the record was (sadly) also a radio hit; "Doesn't Remind Me". This is a sorrowful song about a man trying to forget either a dead love or a loss of faith (or maybe both) by immersing himself in the immediacy of the things around him. The verses are delivered relatively quietly, with drums high in the mix and Cornell listing a variety of things that capture his own emotional detachment:

"I like gypsy moths and radio talk
'Cause it doesn't remind me of anything
I like gospel music and canned applause
'Cause it doesn't remind me of anything"

Then when the chorus hits, the song increases tempo and pounds with a fury as Cornell's lyrics admit that this effort to idly forget the past is ultimately unsuccessful:

"The things that I've loves the things that I lost
Things I held sacred that I've dropped
I won't lie no more you can bet
I don't want to learn what I'll need to forget."

While I don't subscribe to this kind of defeatism as a general approach to life, I think the song does a good job (musically and lyrically) of capturing those times in our lives when we feel this way. It shows that even if you work very hard to find emotional detachment and numbness at hard times, spots of rage will still show through until you properly work through what's going on in your head.

As with "Revelations" I found the first half of "Out of Exile" a lot better than the second (in the old days we called this "Side One"). The main exception being the exceptionally silly and schmaltzy, "Be Yourself" at track three, which is exactly as Walt Disney/After School Special in its message as the title suggests.

Of the last six tracks only "The Worm" really appeals, and even this song is basically just me falling for a killer funky riff from Morello's guitar to the point that I'm willing to overlook the song's faults. It makes me want to take all three of Audioslave's records and make a 'greatest hits' album for myself. I'll do that - but only after I have reviewed their final album, some time in the dim and distant future.

While "Out of Exile" didn't really teach me anything, nor did it overwhelm me musically, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. It is a solid rock record meant for summer driving with the top down of your convertible. If you don't have a convertible, I heartily recommend it, although obviously the CD is the less expensive purchase.

Best tracks: Your Time Has Come, Out of Exile, Doesn't Remind Me, The Worm

CD Odyssey Disc 25: Audioslave

The penultimate "pre-rolled" CD Odyssey Disc 25 is...

Revelations

This picture is generic. My first attempt to find a photo resulted in a virus attack, and put me off the whole thing. Future albums shall have appropriate pictures - this time you get vinyl!

Artist: Audioslave

Year of Release: 2006

How I Came To Know It: I believe my friend Chris introduced me to Audioslave - telling me a band is made up of a mixture of Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine made for an easy sell.

How It Stacks Up: Audioslave only has 3 albums - Cornell is off doing pretentious solo work and Rage Against the Machine has decided to welcome back their perpetually angry lead singer into the fold. Revelations is their last work together (at least for now) and is far and away the weakest.

Rating: 2 stars with a thumbs up.

Let me start by saying I really like Audioslave - a band that engenders a fair amount of dissension in the rock-fan world.

As far as I am concerned combining the genius of Chris Cornell's voice, with the amazing guitar playing of Tom Morello is inspired.

Unfortunately, while the guitar playing on this album is incredible, and some of the licks amazing, overall the songs are fairly forgettable. Also, Cornell is a bit too screechy.

I know, I know - screaming in tune is what Cornell does best, but here it comes off as a little pretentious and over the top, even for him.

The album's first 3 or 4 tracks show promise but they aren't followed up with strong material. Nevertheless, the technical mastery of Morello's guitar is on display, and Cornell sings well on a bad day, so the album is still worth an occasional listen.

Mark this one down for completionists only. It ain't bad, but you're better served with the excellent offerings of Audioslave's first two records.

Best tracks: Revelations, One And The Same, Original Fire