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"Audioslave" CD Cover Download

Amazon.com Review: The debut of thundering supergroup Audioslave--featuring members of Rage Against the Machine post-Zack de la Rocha with ex-Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell--is as much curio as fascinating blend of visions. Cornell might be outnumbered, but his unmistakable holler and nihilistic imagery ensure that Audioslave, the album, recalls early Soundgarden. That's especially true since de la Rocha took Rage's signature rap and politicking with him. Still, if this is Soundgarden, it's Soundgarden set to stun. Rage guitarist Tom Morello is more of a mauler than Kim Thayil ever was--witness "Shadow on the Sun," which moves from bruising thud to psychedelic freak-out and back again--while the Rage rhythm section of Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk anchor the bottom end with pure instrumental cement. Intentionally or not, "Gasoline" bears passing resemblance to "Rusty Cage," while the sweeping "I Am the Highway" and slow-burning "The Last Remaining Light" best showcase Cornell's surprisingly New Age-y lyrical bent. Cover art by Storm Thorgerson, who gave Pink Floyd records their distinctive stamp, underscores the set's inherent celebrity. Fans of Rage and Soundgarden can raise clenched fists in unison, for Audioslave is win-win. --Kim Hughes

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Audioslave CD Cover Download

Amazon.com Review: The novelty of Audioslave has had time to wear off. The grouping of ex-Rage Against the Machine members and ex-Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell is no longer new; and time has long since come for the band to live or die based solely on the merits of its music, not on the reputation of its members. The good news is that, at least for now, the group is in a position to do exactly that. On Revelations, the band channels and updates the unapologetic boogie of Ian Gillan-era Deep Purple on tunes such as "One and the Same," "Shape of Things to Come," and "Wide Awake" with ease, inspiring awe and genuine surprise. Guitarist Tom Morello has rarely sounded as fresh as he does on the stomp-and-stammer "Original Fire" and the otherwise disposable grunge retread "Somedays." Not every track here can be as good as the opening title cut and a few--the should-be moving ballad "Until We Fall," the closing "Moth"--fall painfully short. But there is enough strength here to suggest that Audioslave's ability to deliver jaw-dropping albums remains intact and its ability to live up to the hype is lagging just a step or two behind. --Jedd Beaudoin

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Audioslave CD Cover Download

Amazon.com Review:

Album Description: Japanese only SHM-CD (Super High Material CD - playable on all CD players) pressing. Universal. 2008.In what was widely predicted to be a short-lived supergroup/side-project, Audioslave has instead gratifyingly yielded a bonafide band. The follow-up to their promising, if not quite artistically congealed '02 debut finds singer/songwriter Chris Cornell contributing a slate of songs that would have done his former Soundgarden proud, while guitarist Tom Morello and his former Rage Against the Machine bandmates cast them in a focused rhythmic groove that suggests that the old school can still yield a timely lesson or two. Cornell's best songs may still lurk in the shadows (the funeral hypno-blues of "Heaven's Dead," the martial metal of antiwar opener "Your Time Has Come," "The Worm" as anthem for self-loathing), yet they're now brightened with such surprisingly sunny fare as "Dandelion," "Doesn't Remind Me"'s charged, existentialist daydream and even a hook-rich, dangerously optimistic back-to-the-future power ballad in "Be Yourself." Morello's work on the title track and elsewhere is a study in taste and less-is-more efficiency, a telling hint of how forcefully these iconic '90s stars have sublimated their egos as their new music has blossomed; who said there are no second acts in American (rock) lives? --Jerry McCulley