summertime photos

summertime photos

Audioslave "out of exile" ***

*** Unless you love Led Zeppelin, then it's five stars.

This is straight ahead pure rock and roll. This is how they made albums in the 1970's/early 1980's. Which is kind of disappointing given that Audioslave is the combination of two of the best bands of the 1990's soundgarden (grunge) and Rage Against the machine (rap/rock but good).

I think there are basically three reasons for this. First of all, song structure is pretty simple. Take one riff, then classic chorus-verse-chorus-verse-guitar solo-chorus structure. Its gets a little repetitive. Secondly, guitarist Tom Morella is pretty limited. He can play a great riff, but whenever he tries to go a full fledged guitar solo, he fails to lift the songs to the next level. Third, I blame producer Rick Rubin. Now he has produced everyone from the Beastie Boys to Tom Petty. But here he doesn't do anything to enhance the band. It's straight rock and roll which is fine (hence three stars) but we expect more. There is nothing here to match the power and originality of something like Cochise. The album rocks, but nothing new.

Chris Cornell does more than carry the load. He seems to be leading the songwriting - hence the tilt towards classic/hard rock tunes rather than alternative/rap. His vocals are pure power. On the controversial side, I think that Chris is the premiere practioner of Christian Rock today. On the first album, this was only hinted at with songs like "show me how to live" which could be interpreted many ways. But songs like "drown me slowly" - walk on water - and "Heaven's dead" plus liner notes are pretty obvious in his tilt. His liberal bandmates must be gritting their teeth.

One great new song is "doesn't remind me" which is almost a blues number - the one attempt at songwriting growth for this band. This is the album Led Zeppelin would make today. But overall, if you're waiting for the next great hard rock album, here it is. Otherwise, don't get too excited.