I Want my Band Back!

Audioslave

Revelations. 

2006, Interscope  

Produced by Brendan O'Brien

Chris Cornell - vocals
Tom Morello - guitar
Tim Cummerford - bass
Brad Wilk - drums

Singles -

• Original Fire/ Set it off/ Gasoline
• Original Fire/ Doesnt Remind Me
• Revelations

This is the third and last offering from Audioslave, which is a pity, because it seemed to me that finally they had found their own sound.  Rage Against the Machine was a pretty tight rhythm section fronted by a rapper/singer.  When they broke up, the tight rythmn section decided they could just get another front man and continue making music.  The first two albums sounded just like you would expect, Rage Against the Machine, with a singer, instead of a unique band.  This album saw a departure from that and began to sound like a cohesive band, a single sound, not a band and singer separate and sharing a track.  I was always frustrated with Audioslave, after being such a huge Rage fan.

Ideally, Audioslave could have been what was good about Rage Against the Machine's music and sound, and what was good about Chris Cornell's range and vocal ability.  Instead, we got mediocrity from both parts of the equation.  Chris Cornell never seemed willing to play well with the politics of the other three quarters of his new project, and Tom Morello seemed like he just wanted to produce as much music as possible in as little time as possible, going for volume over quality.  There are a few tracks on here that do address current events and borderline politics, the most obvious is Wide Awake about New Orleans and the Katrina hurricane.  And there are a few tracks that sound like there was more thought and time put into the song structure.  This is the better of the three Audioslave albums.  The album is well crafted, listenable from beginning to end.