Renegades

Q - 3 out of 5 stars - "...Steely energy and stifling seriousness....Those lying closest to their own unsubtle oeuvre, i.e. the Minor Threat and Cypress Hill tracks, are as crunching as die-hards could hope for..." Melody Maker - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...The electric crackle of real rage will still Frankenstein your spine and make you quiver with that strange combo of elation and self-disgust..." Spin - 7 out of 10 - "...[These] songs air the frustration behind the band's united front....acknowledging the pissing-in-the-prevailing-wind nature of their critique..." Rolling Stone - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Not only do Rage understand the sweep of rock and rap history, but they have bold and unusual ways of tearing that history up....executing each song with the roaring, fearless spirit that's been missing in action since these songs were new." NME - 8 stars out of 10 - "...At once brilliant archaeology; a final rewrite of the rage manifesto...revealing the foundation on which they stood: hip-hop and punk, anger and beats..."

Rush released after the late-2000 split between Zack de la Rocha and the rest of Rage Against the Machine, the covers album Renegades salutes the band's musical and philosophical roots, ranging from the old-school Bronx to the hard-rockin' Motor City to protest-central Greenwich Village to gangsta-ridden L.A. As could be expected, the set works best when the group focuses on material from its most recent forebears: rappers and hardcore bands. Indeed, Renegades begins with a pair of powerful hip-hop covers -- Eric B & Rakim's "Microphone Fiend" and Volume 10's "Pistol Grip Pump" -- that spotlight Rage's immense strengths: Tom Morello's clean, heavy riffing and vocalist de la Rocha's finely tuned spray of vitriol, just this side of self-righteous. Another hip-hop blast (and the one closest to home), Cypress Hill's "How I Could Just Kill a Man," is even more devastating, an easy pick for the highlight of the album. Listeners familiar with the originals, however, may have trouble with Rage's covers of EPMD's "I'm Housin'," the Stones' "Street Fighting Man," and Dylan's "Maggie's Farm," a trio of original versions whose anger and emotion were conveyed more in the lyrics than the performances. Still, drummer Brad Wilk sets an appropriately frenetic hardcore tempo for the excellent version of Minor Threat's "In My Eyes," and de la Rocha stretches out well on the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams." With just a bare few excepions, Renegades works well, in part because Rage Against the Machine is both smart enough to change very little and talented enough to make the songs its own. ~ John Bush|