Old-school rap rock snooze-fest
Already known for his edgy socio-political statements and screaming riffs with Audioslave and RATM, Tom Morello teams up with another activist in the form of The Coup rapper Boots Riley. Together with drummer Stanton Moore, they make up the Street Sweeper Social Club, voice of the working classes.
Their debut album does exactly what it says on the tin. Morello uses his guitar to keep heavy rhythm and white noise while Riley adds a hip-hop edge with politically charged lyrics. Heavy stuff. Shame that most of it falls so flat.
While anyone expecting anything less than insightful, socially-aware wordplay is kidding themselves, by the time ‘Clap For The Killers’ arrives the formula’s so predictable that even the most hardened radical will be reaching for their Run DMC records. The only blessing is that it does hark back to those days when fusing rap and rock was something new and exciting rather than something you can switch on to MTV any time.
But rather than providing something that energises and inspires the listener to fight the injustice Riley sings about, it reinforces the idea that the whole thing is repetitive, stilted, and outdated. Riley’s flat vocals combined with Morello’s constant guitar drone are lethargy on disc.
Morello’s guitar, as usual, becomes a whole rhythm section it itself, and still no one’s sure how he does it. The sound is brilliant, but the riffs are so similar and overused. The problem seems to be that so many of the songs run to the same formula you need to keep checking which track you’re on. ‘Fight! Smash! Win’ is a damp squib of an opener when you’re expecting spectacular fireworks. ‘100 Little Curses’ and the quirky ‘Promenade’ are the high points, when they summon the energy to edge towards something anthemic. Beyond that, don’t expect any surprises.
Whichever way you look at it, the combination of Morello’s guitar theatrics, Moore’s uninspired drumming, and Riley’s monotone rhetoric just doesn’t ring true. It’s a good idea that hasn’t been thought through.