Audioslave - Revelations

I liked Soundgarden. I loved Rage Against the Machine. I knew Audioslave would be at least interesting when I first heard that the instrumentalists of RATM had hooked up with Chris Cornell. And I did like their first self-titled CD. When they toured to promote their second CD, Out of Exile, I went and saw them. They are much, much, much better live. Chris Cornell gets into it, and gives the performance his all. Tom Morello has got to be the most talented guitarist I have ever seen live. But I just don't think the studio recordings capture the band's true spirit. I can't recapture what I saw live so I haven't been able to get into their CDs.

Revelations is a decent CD. It's just there's probably a couple Audioslave songs on each CD that really gets to me, but then the rest make me long for RATM. The lyrics aren't as strong as they used to be. I love the sound of Morello's guitar, and Brad Wilk is a damn good drummer. And I don't even notice drummers most of the time. Tim Commerford lays down a good groovy bass. But Cornell's voice only works for me about half the time. I guess I'm just wishing the band was still recording with angry Zack de la Rocha.

"Original Fire" does show Cornell at his best when he screams. The song is a good rocking number. "Broken City" has a real groovy beat that I like. Most of the songs have places for Morello to show off his guitar solos. But most of the songs lyrics just don't really say anything to me.

There's one exception. "Wide Awake" covers a topic that every American seems to have feelings about, so even Chris Cornell was willing to get past his aversion to just being in a "political band," which made him hesistant to join the former RATM members. The topic? The Bush's Administration's slow response to Hurricane Katrina.

You can a look a hurricane right in the eye
1200 people dead or left to die
Follow the leaders, we're in an eye for an eye we'll all be blind
Death for murder and this I'm sure in this uncertain time

So come pull the sheet over my eyes
So I can sleep tonight
Despite what I've seen today
I find you guilty of a crime, of sleeping at a time
When you should have been wide awake

Down on the road the world is floating by
The poor and undefended left behind
While you're somewhere trading lives for oil
As if the whole world were blind, hey

The other songs have lyrics that may sound a little political, but not so upfront. Once again, it's not like this is a bad album, it's just each Audioslave album makes me miss Rage Against the Machine more.

For further reading:
Audioslave's homepage
All Music Guide's Audioslave entry
Wikipedia's Audioslave entry