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Location: Vienna, Virginia, United States

A graduate of Dartmouth College (2005) and Washington and Lee University School of Law (2010). These are my personal blogs, and the musings expressed on them do not reflect the positions of my employer. They do reflect my readings, thoughts, and aspirations, which I figure is good enough.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Like a Stone

The new Audioslave definitely builds on the sounds that Chris Cornell + the Rest of Rage were able to develop in their first album.

But Chris Cornell really needs to go away from the ballad sound that comes forth on songs such as "Like a Stone." While they're not exactly ballads, Cornell's voice takes some very repetitive turns in the songs, especially on the sustained notes. There are songs like that on the new album, for instance "Yesterday or Tomorrow," and it doesn't improve my opinion of the band.

Audioslave is at its best on new songs like "Heaven's Dead" which really feature the drumwork that is reminiscent of Rage Against the Machine. Otherwise, the band is basically Chris Cornell crooning about women's private parts and his penis, and that just gets old after awhile.

I was leery about the union of Cornell and Rage from the start, if only because it didn't seem to me that they could either blend their sounds or come up with something original. I was very afraid that it would just end up sounding like Soundgarden-lite. The first album was decent, I thought, although the lyrics were at times horrible ("I am not your rolling stone / I am a highway"?) and the guitar work was often too anonymous. If you're going to make a band with the rest of Rage, make sure people can tell it's Rage.

So what I ultimately concluded about them was that they were going to be a decent band as long as they stayed away from slow, whiny songs that exclusively featured Cornell. The band's writing simply isn't strong enough to sustain interest in the lyrics, even though Cornell does have a unique voice.

Songs on the new album like "Dandelion" are just silly. "Little Dandelion, let your heart keep time" is not what we want to be hearing from Audioslave. It's unfortunate that they went so far away from the political message of Rage that they ended up with stuff as trite as this. That said, Brad Wilk's drums and Morello's guitar come through a lot stronger on this album, and it's a good thing.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You seem to forget that in Ep II, Padme took the initiative to pilot a ship to rescue Obi-wan. Also, the only reason 3PO is flying instead of Padme is for irony (more of Lucas' humor)--since he'll have even more issues with space travel later on. Its the last thing you'd expect him to do.

12:21 AM  
Blogger Satchmo said...

Yeah, I know she piloted a ship in Ep II. I guess she couldn't fly in this one because she was pregnant? Who knows . . . Remember, Padme also fell out of a moving aircraft in Episode II, which I guess was Lucas' new version of a strong female character. Even though it just made her look absolutely silly.

Then again, Obi Wan is ok after Count Dooku throws a big pile of concrete on his legs, so maybe in the Star Wars Universe, people don't break limbs? That might be why you need to cut them off . . .

I also don't really see the irony in 3P0 being able to fly a ship in one movie and stumbling around like a goon in the next, but then again, I didn't get a lot of Episode III.

12:34 AM  
Blogger Satchmo said...

Oh, and something else to look out for in Ep III if you're a fanboy.

As the shuttle carrying Palpatine, Anakin and Obi Wan comes to the Senate (after the crash landing onto Coruscant), look below it to another level of parking. Ah, the good old YT-1300 Corellian Light Freighter (that's what it's called isn't it). Just sayin is all...

And does anyone else have the problem that you can travel from Musta'far to Coruscant in less than a day it seems?

12:39 AM  

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