Rage Against The Machine - Evil Empire
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Rock City Crew
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Releaser: Maste75
Crew: Rock City
Extractor: EAC 0.99 prebeta 5
Read Mode: Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache.
Codec: Flac 1.2.1; Level 8
Source: Original CD
Artwork: Front, Back, inside, inlay and CD (Web Found).
General Info:
Artist: Rage Against The Machine
Album Title: Evil Empire
Year: 1996
Tracklist:
1. People Of The Sun
2. Bulls On Parade
3. Vietnow
4. Revolver
5. Snakecharmer
6. Tire Me
7. Down Rodeo
8. Without A Face
9. Wind Below
10.Roll Right
11.Year Of Tha Boomerang
Review taken from Rollingstone.com:
Heavy metal has never been much of a forum for political discourse.
Not that all razor-edged rockers are lunkheads, but many are just too
narcissistic to see beyond their own narrow world Either they're obsessed
with decadence and debauchery or consumed by misery and hatred.
Neither situation leaves much room for intelligent discussion
of the issues of the day.
Rage Against the Machine hope to change that with their inflammatory
blend of roaring guitars, barked raps and political activism.
Their lyrics lambaste government corruption, media manipulation, big business,
complacency and ambivalence, and the band members practice what they preach.
Since the release of their debut album in 1992, they've walked onstage
naked at Lollapalooza with electric tape over their mouths to protest
music censorship, played a benefit show for the death-row inmate
Mumia Abu-Jamal and spoken out against the imprisonment of the American
Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier.
Rage's first album adhered a bit too closely to the band's influences,
invoking the force of Black Sabbath, the swaggering stomp of Led Zeppelin and
the confrontational rap style of Public Enemy. The lyrics lashed out against
a range of domestic problems, including police brutality,
the educational system and innercity violence. But while the album was ambitious,
it failed to meet its lofty goals. Disaffected teens rallied behind
the cries of "Fuck you/I won't do what you told me," from "Killing in the Name," but
they seemed to view Rage's appeal as an excuse to skip school and take drugs.
That was four years ago, and since that time, Rage Against the Machine have
honed their marksmanship and fine-tuned their agenda. If the band's first
album was a call to arms, Evil Empire is a declaration of war, only this time,
many of the group's diatribes are aimed at foreign soil. Vocalist and
lyricist Zack De La Rocha has become involved with the continuing
struggle of the Zapatistas, a group of Mexican farmers seeking emancipation
from the ruling class, and at least three songs on Evil Empire address the issue.
On "Without a Face," which features tornado guitar gusts that build and dip over
a sparse funk beat, De La Rocha outlines the dilemma: "Maize was all we needed
to sustain/Now her golden skin burns insecticide rain/Ya down with DDT, yeah, you
know me/Raped for the grapes, profit for the bourgeois."
Elsewhere, the band focuses its sights on the U.S. military ("Bulls on Parade"),
the American dream ("Tire Me") and right-wing talk shows ("Vietnow").
De La Rocha has always been radical in his beliefs, but on Evil Empire,
he comes off like a hybrid of the Terminator and Robin Hood, on a mission
to annihilate the power elite and redistribute the wealth.
On a sonic level the band still anchors its sound in the music of Led Zeppelin
and Red Hot Chili Peppers, but its horizons have widened, and it now incorporates
influences like Fugazi and Helmet. Rage also have acquired a greater
understanding of hip-hop and funk and have injected the techniques of artists
such as Dr. Dre, Cypress Hill, and Sly and the Family Stone into their
turbocharged rhythms. As a result, there's a greater synergy between
the music and the message.
Making better use of dynamics, guitarist Tom Morello coaxes a startling array
of sounds from his strings and effect pedals. At various moments the guitars
resemble power drills, machine guns and fax machines. "Bulls on Parade" incorporates
funky wah-wah guitar strums and an intricate record-scratching solo
into a blasting rhythm. "Wind Below" is driven by a riff that recalls
a slowed-down version of Zeppelin's "Black Dog," and "Revolver" starts with
underwater guitar echoes that sound like "EXP," by Jimi Hendrix, before
shifting into a murky, psychedelic section similar to Zeppelin's "No Quarter" and
ending with a punk riff reminiscent of Beck's "Mutherfuker."
In an era in which political candidates are weaker than Styrofoam and the American
public grows more ambivalent by the minute, perhaps De La Rocha's radical
rhetoric can make a difference. As Plato said, "The introduction of a new kind
of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state, since styles of music
are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions."
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