October 26, 1999

The Battle Of Los Angeles

You find yourself going all [B]Victor Meldrew[/B] - "What is the [I]point[/I]?...

7 / 10 You find yourself going all Victor Meldrew - "What is the point? I mean Rage Against The Machine came along years and bloody years ago with their fat-as-fuckery monster metal-funk basslines, dub-style instrumental drop-outs, muscular tea-chest drumming and old Zack yelling his box off over the top and swearing like a Tourette's-stricken Noam Chomsky after his first pipe of crack about how evil the Yank military/industrial complex is in that Mickey-Mouse-with -his-knackers-dipped -in-liquid -helium voice of his. That was all well and good way back then but now - God help us - it's years and years and years and years later and they stick out yet another bloody record that sounds exactly the same! I mean, what is the bloody point!?"

/img/RageAgainstTheMachin1099.jpg Damn right! And what about the charge that the mad Marxist metal-monkeys are also primarily responsible for birthing, inspiring and granting legitimacy to the glut of shit-awful sports-metal dumbo-combos currently sucking corporate cock with feverish and disgustingly undignified gusto while simultaneously clogging up the airwaves with their lumpen aural filth, hmm?

Guilty as charged, your honour, but fuck it. Who cares? This record rocks. Look at the tracklistings - 'Guerrilla Radio', 'Calm As A Bomb', 'Sleep Now In The Fire', 'War In A Breath' - and listen to the near-hysterical righteous anger and teeth-gritted, attack-dog-with-a-beehive-rammed-up-its-hairy-canine-ass madness and ask yourself - is that a wave of skin-tingling adrenaline I feel whiplashing down my rigid spine?

You've got to ask yourself, do these dudes ever mellow out? Probably not. Zack might wake up on a beautiful spring morning with Mr Bluebird on his shoulder and start humming 'Zip A Dee Doo Dah' for a bit but then he's probably going to think - "Shit! Beautiful day, my ass! Millions are suffering under an evil socio-economic system which deprives them not only of the full fruits of their labour but also of their basic human dignity. And that makes me MAAAAAAAAAAD!" And suddenly he's in the mood to make yet another album of ranting, churning, slamming heavy funk-metal thunder like this one. Wicked!

If you ever mistook this for something a bunch of no-knob no-marks like Limp Bizkit could whack out then, I'm sorry, but you are fucking deaf, mad and probably from another (spectacularly shit) planet. Keep raging, mad Yank commies, your planet needs you.